


The Extravagant Cost of Hope

by Ukthxbye



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cute Rosamund Mary "Rosie" Watson, Emotional Baggage, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, F/M, I Love You Scene (Sherlock: The Final Problem), Just to the left of canon, Molly Hooper isn't ok, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Near Death Experiences, POV Greg Lestrade, POV John Watson, POV Molly Hooper, POV Mycroft Holmes, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Mary Morstan/John Watson, Season/Series 04, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Slow Build, Unresolved Emotional Tension, i'm sorry i had to do it, ignore my timeline Mofftiss's didn't make sense either, it gets soft. org at the end I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ukthxbye/pseuds/Ukthxbye
Summary: She ended the call. But it would have ended anyway she suspected.It was a stupid game, and she'd won a stupid prize. Clung to the edge of softness bleeding through the second time he said it, memorizing every breathless word like prayer and she repeated it back like liturgyBut she was done. Emptied vessel that even her tears dried into salt in her mouth. She screamed piercing and guttural until her throat refused to utter another sound, raw and bleeding.But only in her head.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 88
Kudos: 176





	1. Molly

She ended the call. But it would have ended anyway she suspected.

It was a stupid game, and she'd won a stupid prize. Clung to the edge of softness bleeding through the second time he said it, memorizing every breathless word like prayer and she repeated it back like liturgy.

But she was done. Emptied vessel that even her tears dried into salt in her mouth. She screamed piercing and guttural until her throat refused to utter another sound, raw and bleeding. 

But only in her head.

In truth, she stood staring in silence, fingers trembling, leaning on the counter by her tea mug as its surrounding air chilled. Her phone in her hand as if she expected it to come alive. Why did she expect anything, she thought. Perhaps he was high, and this was it and she'd be... free? But no, she'd never be free and every rib in her chest ached grasping this certainty. 

The extravagant cost of hope her burden.

She shifted her legs, the stiffness and tingling threatening to drop her to the floor but she recovered plodding her way to her sofa. Swirls of rapid thoughts of anything to do instead of overthinking washed over as she flopped.

Telly? Oh but it's bad soap operas he liked to yell at or news that sprinkled existential dread. 

She remembered the whisky in her cabinet and her liver's future punishment for her if she chose distraction in emptying it. She'd joked that he thought her a lush. Perhaps it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Him the needle and her the bottle in an eternal struggle until the waves overtook them both.

She listened to cars drive by. Her errand list still waiting and reminded her that his darkness not hers to imitate and own. Her face turned, burrowing in the pillow under her head. A scent assaulted her. His damn cologne. She'd smelled in the lab when he got too close but never was it so strong as those two times he'd kissed her cheek. She'd been less affected by men fucking her than those apologies for him not being able to love her properly. She pulled herself up from the sofa gritting her teeth at the thought. That this phone call like one more of those kisses. Not able? _Or just didn't want to enough to try._

"Fuck him," she murmured as she grabbed her coat and bag, tossing the mobile in her pocket and slamming the front door behind her.

She paused outside, the cool wet air causing her to blink in relief. She called a friend or two but no one could come out. Pub down the road might do. But she got on the tube instead, riding through stops before taking a different line and then another. She counted station announcements and pushed out of the train when she couldn't stand that voice again. She moved on to buses. She'd be mad at herself for the cost later. But for now it felt good to keep moving. She got off and worked her way past the stop at Covent Garden, slammed with locals politely shouldering tourists. The oppressive busyness like a shield to her deeper musings as she strolled near the shops. 

The faint vibration of a text at her hip as her mobile bumped against her in the crowd. She didn't want to look because he's stupid enough to try that after a phone call. Every logical thought told her to talk to someone. Not let this fester in her head tonight. But no one knows about them except in abstraction. No one saw that second kiss like a breakup and no one said a thing when they found out he used her place and her bed like his own. He's absolved of all suspicion and she gets all the pitying looks. 

Two more texts as she moved down a street with fewer people. She realized she'd not eaten all day as she passed a kebob shop, but her stomach knotted and thought of food unappetizing as she kept moving. Her angered energy waned, and she considered the pub on the corner. A beer might settle her stomach so she could eat she thought but her phone ringing stopped her steps and she only shifted to stand against the building wall when two people nearly ran her over.

She lifted the mobile but held it tight in her hand out of sight. She shouldn't answer but it might be a friend calling. Trembling as she turned it over, the screen lit up to show Greg Lestrade the caller. It went to voicemail. She stayed leaning against the wall as a couple passed by. A random musing came to her. Maybe she'd shag Greg if he'd let her. He seemed keen several years ago. A dirty little bit of revenge but would Sherlock even care? Her phone lit up. Greg wouldn't call again if it was just for a friendly chat. She swallowed hard as she answered it.

"Hello? Molly?!"

She sighed, "Hey" audible enough she heard him answer a similar one in relief on the other end.

His voice rose again, and she picked up voices in the background. "Molly where the hell are you? Are you safe?"  
  


"Pardon?"

"You aren't at yours. Are you safe?!"

"No, and yes I'm safe just out walking... why does it matter?"

"Because... God this is gonna be a lot to explain in one breath."

"Greg what the hell…"

"Molly you got a call from Sherlock earlier, yeah?"  
  


Her knees crumbled as she slid her back down the wall to a squat. 

"Molly… are you—"

The tears absent before found their way out again in her shock. "How do you know?" her voice cracked.  
  


"It's complicated but something to do with a sister who set up this sick game. We just got John out of a well earlier."

"What?"

"Yeah, 221b was bombed. There are people checking your house now. That's how I knew you weren't home."

Quiet breathing across the line between them. 

Her words strangled as she opened her mouth, but she needed to ask. "Sherlock, he's—"

Greg answered without the whole question. "He's alive… and I guess OK."

She snickered, nerves nibbling at the edge of her calm left. "He always is."

Greg chuckled, " That's a lie… and you're not ok. Sally is at yours. Go see her, OK?"

She sniffed, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. "No thanks. Might hit the pub, see if I can pull someone if they live close by."

"Molly…" His voice weary but she remained silent. "Besides, we need a statement. Go back home, please or—"

"Or what?"

He sighed, "You know who is gonna send a car after you."

She huffed, "How do you know? I've never been on his radar."  
  


Greg swallowed."He's standing right here. He's involved as well and just arrived here." Greg paused, irritation in his voice as he added, "Told me that's what he'll do if he has to—"

She pulled her phone away from her face as she yelled into it. "Oh, to hell with all of you!"

He swore under his breath as she put the mobile to her ear again. "Molly, as your friend, please do this… you'll know everything later I'll make sure of it— wait... hold on... hey get him!"

She stood walking toward to the tube station listening to him shout in the distance. Was that Sherlock shouting back? Did she catch her name? She hated how her heart leapt at the possibility. 

The mobile filled with scuffing noises like him handing to someone else, and she didn't hear Greg anymore. She was about to hang up when another voice came on the line.

"I hope you are safe, Miss Hooper."

Mycroft's voice a shock. Something ragged around the edges of it made her pause.

"Yes. I was just out walking but I'm headed back to mine as instructed," she snapped back.

"Thank you… you will know all the details soon." More yelling in the background but he cupped his hand on the phone to block it out. 

"Were you there?" She didn't know why she asked until she'd said the words except she's done playing games. 

" As I said, you will know--"

"Don't you dare." she whispered it just loud enough so he wouldn't miss the hiss from her teeth there to inform him of the delicate ground they all tread on. 

He continued with a sigh. "John and I were there."

She sniffed feeling all the pain from earlier wash over her. "Oh my god..."

He sighed. "Miss Hooper—"

She shook her head, fighting back everything she'd pushed back. "Please, just... spare me at this point. Today's been hard enough." 

"We'll talk soon. Please proceed to your home as soon as possible."

She ended the call. But it would have ended anyway she suspected.


	2. Greg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg arrived on the scene to chaos, and hunted down Molly to start putting the puzzle together.

Timelines are his shock blanket. Wrapped around his shoulders shielding him from the dread of uncertainty and the sirens blaring in his mind at a distance. Aware when 221b blew up. When John, Sherlock and Mycroft went missing. Even the relative timeline of the last phone call.

But the holes in the blanket evident as he's directed to a scene with a man being pulled from a well. That Man none other than John Watson and Sherlock there as well. Greg's thoughts swirled as if he found himself lowered down into the still waters. Information came in spurts and screams for Molly and Rosie and Mrs Hudson and he knew nothing else but to slip away to hunt everyone down. All secure but Molly but Sally was working on it. He needed to get to Sherlock before he started hunting down people himself. 

"Ambulance, straight ahead," another detective called out to Greg over the chaos.

Greg jogged to Sherlock to keep him from running to him and stopped as Sherlock shortened the distance with more speed. "Sherlock are you—"

"Mrs Hudson! Rosie! My brother!... Mycroft?"

Greg threw his hands in front of him, "Ok!!"

"Tell me!"

Greg yelled back, "They're ok. He's ok. As much as any you can fucking be right now." Greg spit at the ground, hands on his hips watching as Sherlock stumbled and leaned back to a seat in the ambulance. _Concussions for the lot of them probably_ , Greg thought. 

"He'll be here soon. At least that's what his text said." Greg sighed, bringing his arms across his chest.

Sherlock's face scrunched up as he whispered, "How..."

"He always finds a way."

Sherlock staring out into the dark, quiet and unnerving to Greg. 

Greg coughed as he sat beside Sherlock, searching over the supplies spying some blankets. He ran his hand over them, picking up one. He elbowed Sherlock, "You need a blanket?"

Sherlock sighed with an eye roll "You're saying I'm in shock? I think—"

"You know what if you don't want it I'll take it, you bastard," Greg wrapped it around his shoulders like a cape. 

"Um... I'm the one in shock so" Sherlock grabbed the edge of it and tugged but Greg held tight. 

The two men stared at the other. 

"Well, it makes two of us," Greg sneered. 

A scene worker dropped another blanket off as if prompted and Sherlock relented. Both men wrapped them tight around them as they stared off in the distance for a few breaths. 

Sherlock spoke first and softly. "My friends were gone. Again. All of you… unsure of what… if anything she was doing affected anyone.... until Molly answered my call."

Greg huffed out a hard breath before asking in a similar soft tone, "It might be awfully personal but—"

"Yes it is… don't ask."

Greg huffed and crossed his arms. "Someone's gonna tell me in the end. I'll look at the report. What was the phone call about? "

"She said she'd die." Sherlock's eyes squeezed shut.

"Sherlock what—"

Sherlock kept his eyes closed. Greg's eyes looked down to Sherlock's bandaged hands, curling into fists laid on his legs. Sherlock sighed, "It was a lie though… she never was in that sort of danger… wait--"

Sherlock shot up from his seat, wide eyed.."You said she was safe right? Is she safe?"

Greg frowned, "Hmm?"

Sherlock shouted in Greg's face, "Molly!"

Greg put his hands up pushing him back. "She's fine I'm sure. I'm waiting for a text from Sally, calm down!"

As if on cue, Greg's mobile buzzed in his pocket and he raised a finger at Sherlock as he grabbed it and started to walk away from the noise of the vehicles. 

"She's not here."

Greg glanced away from Sherlock and into the dark as he paced. 

"Hmm?"

Sally's gulp evident through the phone. "She's not here—"

"Did you call her?" he asked in a hushed yell.

"No I—"

"Then that's useless to me. Was there any evidence of entry?"

"No, her house was locked, and the cat ran from us and hid. Nothing out of sorts."

"You stay there and get the team to search for anything and I'll find her," Greg hung up before she could reply.

He cursed under his breath as he stared down at his mobile, rubbing his jaw. Call? Text? His eyes shot up squinting at a helicopter landing a safe distance away, stirring up a cool wind around him. 

Greg stared at his phone and clicked her name. Waiting, the tone repeating in his ear. Her voice but only a recording and he stopped it. He cut his eyes at Mycroft stepping beside him. He closed his eyes and nodded at Greg. Pause and breathe. He'd try again. 

The tone ceased but silence replaced it. 

"Hello? Molly?!" His calm escaped as adrenaline rushed through him. Panic.

He heard her sigh, "Hey." Faint and he mirrored it. 

"Molly where the hell are you? Are you safe?" He realized he shouted it, but the surrounding chatter had increased.   
  


"Pardon?" 

Her voice flat with confusion reassuring but he still couldn't be sure.

"You aren't at yours. Are you safe?" he asked, trying not to yell. 

"No and yes I'm safe just out walking... Why does it matter?"

He breathed out hard, dropping to a squat as he rubbed his face. "Because... God this is gonna be a lot to explain in one breath."

"Greg what the hell…"

He swallowed, glancing at Mycroft. Another nod. "Molly you got a call from Sherlock earlier, yeah?"  
  


He strained, hearing her breath shallow and another crinkling sound. 

"Molly… are you—"

"How do you know?" Her voice cracked. Crying and his chest ached.   
  


Greg sighed, trying to think of how to explain. "It's complicated but something to do with a sister who set up this sick game. We just got John out of a well earlier."

"What?"

"Yeah, 221b was bombed. There are people checking your house now. That's how I knew you weren't home."

Quiet breathing across the line between them. 

Her voice tiny and faint as she asked. "Sherlock, he's—"

Greg answered without the whole question, happy he could assure her of something. "He's alive… and I guess OK."

She snickered. "He always is."

Greg chuckled back in a similarly nervous way, " That's a lie… and you're not OK. Sally is at yours." He gulped. "Go see her, OK?"

Her sniffle made him pause.

"No thanks. Might hit the pub, see if I can pull someone if they live close by."

"Molly…" he pleaded, shutting his eyes tight. Her tone was more than angry. That would be fine, expected even. But this... like a knife's edge. He gulped. "Besides, we need a statement. Go back home please or—"

"Or what?"

He sighed, staring at Mycroft who stiffened. He wasn't gonna like what he said next. " _You know who_ is gonna send a car after you."

Mycroft cocked his head, mouth open but closed his eyes again as he hung his head. He hadn't said it at all. But Greg needed Molly to relent. And he needed Mycroft to understand what he dealt with on the other end. 

She huffed loudly in his ear. "How do you know? I've never been on his radar."  
  


Greg swallowed."He's standing right here. He's involved as well and just arrived here." Greg paused, irritation creeping into his voice as he added, "Told me that's what he'll do if he has to—"

"Oh to hell with all of you!" she yelled, the dam breaking on the other side. 

"Fuck," Greg mumbled. He probably made it worse, but she's aware the reach Mycroft had. Calculated risk. Whatever it takes to push her back home safe as soon as possible. Yelling in the distance caught his other ear, and he noticed Mycroft turned his attention to it. One last plea. "Molly, as your friend, please do this… you'll know everything later I'll make sure of it — wait... hold on... hey get him!"

Sherlock at a sprint coming to him. Greg tossed the mobile to Mycroft who caught it with one hand. He can deal with her now. Perhaps Sherlock just wanted any mobile that had Molly's number but he suspected he'd sussed out who Greg was talking to. The grunt and growl as two officers secured him. Desperate, and it struck Greg at the core. John in a lopping jog behind him shouting. 

"I… I'm" Sherlock's breath heaving as he strained against the officers. 

Greg stepped up and gritted in a whisper in Sherlock's face, holding his desperate stare. "Stuck here for now. I don't know what all happened but ain't no good coming from you running to her."

One more thread pulled from the blanket. He couldn't put his fingers on a hand hold to lift them all up from this yet. But he laid his hands on Sherlock's shoulders out of reflex.

He sighed, "I'm sorry Sherlock… but we all made it. We'll get it sorted."

With a hard pat, he removed his hands and stepped back, nodding at John.

"How did she sound?" Sherlock's voice cracked as he swallowed and stared at the ground. 

"Mad."

Sherlock's eyes shot back up. "Angry or…"

"Not sure you need to focus on this," John offered. 

"Greg."

His real name. Sherlock only said it when he was serious. Greg rubbed the back of his skull. "A bit of both. Just let her be... I mean it"

Sherlock frowned, shaking his head. "But I can't… I shouldn't... I--"

"Sherlock… listen to Greg for tonight, OK?" John's hand found Sherlock's shoulder and rested there. 

_Now if he feels outnumbered he'll listen_ , Greg thought. 

"Fine."

Lackluster, sad and filled with despair all in one word. The saddest Greg ever heard Sherlock, and he shook his head as he walked away, trying to rid his ears of its melancholy. The contrast between her and him right now a vast canyon of emotion neither needed to traverse. 

Molly's voice. He'd seen her angry before. That fiery kind of incredulous they all got around Sherlock from time to time. But no, this deep, cold at its core and it scared him. _To hell with all you_ she said, and it wasn't her. Or perhaps it was her, just the part everyone ignored. He'd chatted with her about Sherlock, and her crush but she'd brushed him off every time. So conceivably it wasn't just Sherlock's fault either, he thought.

He snuck from the scene, texting John and Mycroft letting them know where he was headed. A sergeant offered him a ride. Maybe he looked like he needed it.

John text back. **_Let me know… I'll let him know._ **

Mycroft text as well. **_We will meet tomorrow for a debriefing._ **

Greg took a deep breath and text back. **_Take care of your brother._ **

The dots showed up, disappeared and came back. **_I always do._ **

Everyone around him cracking at the seams and his hands are too full of sand already. Heavy headed he laid against the window looking out into the dark starless night. The two men didn't talk once they pulled onto the main highway and Greg appreciated the silence. His eyes closed and soon he fell into a dreamless nap as the sergeant drove fast but steady toward Molly's. 

The sergeant cleared his throat, waking Greg as they arrived. Greg blinked away the unexpected slumber. His hand fell asleep, tingling now at his side as the other wiped the sleep from his eyes. He gave his face a few slaps to wake up, stepping out and sending the car on its way. He paused at her doorstep. He breathed deeply, setting his mind to something calm and resolute. When he pushed past the door into the house, Sally met him with a hand out to stop him at the chest, " She's not talking tonight. "

He sighed through his nose. "Sally, I gotta."

"She's got enough—"

"I'm her friend, OK?" he half yelled it and lowered his voice glancing in Molly's direction and back to Sally. "You already did the cop thing. I'm not doing that."

Sally threw her hands up but with fallen shoulders. "Alright then… just --"

"Be kind… I know."

A terse but understanding smile exchanged, and she left. 

He walked into the too quiet sitting room, side glancing at Molly standing in her kitchen. 

"Tea?" 

Her voice so tiny and soft nonetheless managed to fill the silent room. It shocked him.

She glanced up, eyes seeking his. "Not sure if you—"

"Tea'd be great, thanks Molls." The corners of his lips barely lifted and fell as soon as they rose.

She set the kettle as he watched, staring at the sofa but not sitting.

"Everything is clear and good here. But an officer will stay outside tonight… tomorrow too if you need it," he said, looking at his mobile at a blank screen to avoid her gaze. 

"I'm fine."

"Molly…"

"Don't… start. I'm tired… That's all." She said as she poured the water and plopped the tea bags in two mugs.

He stepped and sat hard on her sofa. "Me too. But I'm not the one threatening to shag a random guy in a pub because —"

She laughed out, and he stared until she stopped. She huffed at the end. "I was just—"

"Molly you're not OK." He stared as she came around into the sitting room setting down the tea mugs on a side table. 

She shrugged with a big smile. "Sure I am. Look at me."

"That's a lie. Stop lying… fuck... you got any whisky?"  
  


She paused staring at the cabinet. He pushed by her, guessing which one she was looking at. The bottle pulled out with one hand and two fingers gripping and clinking two small glasses down for them both with the other. He poured a finger's worth in each and handed it to her with a word as he went back into the sitting room. 

"Drink." 

She stared at the glasses, her hand lifting timid. "I thought about it earlier."

Greg frowned, "Drinking?"

She nodded slow, her hand shaking as she took the glass from his hand. 

"So probably I don't need to drink," she whispered, her brow furrowing. 

Greg shrugged. "Something needs to dull your edges… it's all I got."

Her breath escaped raggedly as she brought the whisky near her lips. She looked up at him, eyes seeking his as she whispered, "I won't want to stop."

His heart fell to his feet as he took the glass from her hand gently, poured it in his and tipped it up swallowing it all. 

He motioned to the sofa. "Let's sit then, eh?" but stood still at her reaction. 

Molly's eyes closed and then opened as she breathed out hard. "So it was a lie. "

"What?  
  


"I made him say it Greg." Her voice tiny again. "I made him say it first… but it still was a lie."

Greg put the empty glass down. He wasn't sure if he could hug her, or anything like that. He folded his arms instead. " I wasn't there, Molls… I don't know. Nobody told me anything except there was a call. You'll have to ask someone else." It was a lie in part. He knew something happened, something too personal to ask no matter how curious he was. He'd find out from someone else. "I'm not gonna speak for anyone else. John? Mycroft? I can't. They're alive and... alive. That's it. That's all I got. You'll have to ask him yourself."

Molly shut her eyes tight as she bit her lower lip as she shuffled and sat hard in an armchair. "I'm done asking them anything."  
  


Greg sighed as he stepped to her sofa and sat. "You're just angry tonight—

"Don't you dare tell me what I am." Molly's eyes wide open and he noted the redness now.

He threw his hands up and let them land on the top of his head.   
  


"Every one of you needs to just breathe and let the morning come" he mumbled as he settled back into the sofa with closed eyes. 

"Is 221b really blown up?"

Greg sat back up staring at her, searching her face for a sign of something consistent emotion wise. He couldn't get an exact read yet. "You wanna go see? 

She shook her head staring absently away from him and fell silent. 

He let a few breaths follow before speaking again. "Molls… I'm sorry"

"What for?" she sighed. 

"I… yeah. Just sorry I didn't see," Greg licked his lips as he rubbed the scruff on his face. 

She stood, grabbing her tea mug, taking a sip, face scrunching as she walked back into the kitchen. When she turned on the other side of the counter setting her mug down, she braced her hands on it. 

"See what?" she sighed, glancing up at him with a dropped chin. 

He shrugged as he stood, reaching for the other mug. "You know... God, you know--"  
  


He nearly dropped his tea when she slammed her hands on the counter. He stepped toward her with caution, placing his mug on the counter, noticing his hand shook.

"I'm really tired of everyone speaking to me like I'm made of… of… paper or glass."

Greg stared, watching her breathing come in heaves.

"Like... Like I'll shatter at the notion that I've been in love with Sherlock for too many bloody years." She'd sneered it, her teeth clenching, and he feared that he'd gone down the wrong path. 

He shook his head, mouth agape. "I didn—"

"You did," she shouted. "You all dance around it and it makes it so much worse."

They were both too tired to speak with reason. He understood it but he'd kept going. He flexed his fingers as he leaned against the counter across from her, focusing. "What the hell do you want me to do then? Hmm?"

She stared, all fire, but he watched it dim as she went into her thoughts closing her eyes, now brimming with fresh tears. 

Greg moved to lean on his arms on the cold counter, seeking her eyes once they opened. "Molls… you don't think I don't want to slam him against a wall and get it in his thick head— "

"It's more complicated than that," she said with a jutted chin. 

"Oh… oh... See?" he shrugged. "So maybe we all danced and avoided because what the hell could we do? It wasn't about you Molly."

"Thanks!" she laughed.

"Molls—"

"No… I'm done… I'm done with the fucking… pity. I'm done giving him that much power over my life. I wish you all would join me." 

She'd stumbled through it and chuckled in a deep sad way at the end that broke his heart. The weight of tiny failures along the way hit him the chest, and he rubbed his face to feel something else. 

In the quiet he let his thoughts swirl and he said the first thing that landed. 

"Just so you know, he tried to get the phone from me."

She frowned.

"There... where we all were, I had them grab him and hold him back… I can't say it means anything… It's not my place. But I think he's… sad?"

"Makes two of us then. It was a lie that he said it… to save me now I guess. Maybe he feels something after all. Sadness is an emotion, right? Glad he's got one." She shrugged with a frown.

Greg risked the question. "What was said?"

"I love you."

Greg sure she paused because of his shocked face and his hand's struggle to find a seat on the counter stool beside him. He sat and waited with a faint nod.

She took a deep breath through her nose and continued. "I made him say it. Well his sister did I guess? She made us both. So it was a lie as I said… or whatever you'd call that sort of thing."

She huffed, "An experiment in the end, just not his."

Greg shrugged. "He'd never do that to you… surely."

Her eyebrows rose. "So sure? He took me on that… well I guess it was a date of sorts. Crime solving day we had."

Greg squinted, “So… how’d that go?”  
  


"Besides getting frustrated and calling me John?" she smirked. She took a breath, rubbing her hands. "It slowly became a nice day. I forgot for a minute we weren't more than friends... or the ring on my finger. But he had to go ask me for chips. And I had to say no. He kissed my cheek again wishing me nothing but the best. That I mattered most and then just walked away without a fight."

"He respected your life I think… really quite reasonable for Sherlock."

"But did he? Or was it to make him feel noble… he likes that. So another lie in the end if he did love me," she whispered.

Greg rubbed the back of his neck as he thought about what to say. "You're right about it being a lie... maybe… a lot of his life was? Mycroft didn't tell me much." _Or anything_ he thought. "But not everything can be a lie. Truth is always there and his voice... God it was so sad, Molls… Broken. And we've seen him broken many times, eh?"

She shrugged. "Well it's a shock I'm sure about his sister and—"

"No," Greg shook his head, seeking her eyes for understanding. "It was about you. And I ain't giving any false hope but—"

She laughed out with a huff. "I haven't any room for it anyway if you were."

They let the air hang still from words. He wondered how many times she'd smiled and laughed when it meant the opposite. The secret world these two built between each other, oblivious as Sherlock was to it he suspected. He knew Sherlock stayed here often. How Molly took care of Rosie after Mary died. How many times Molly's taken care of Sherlock. He should have paid closer attention and needed more information to help, but he couldn't right now. Everyone is much too delicate. Tomorrow might bring more to light though. 

Greg sighed. "He's gonna stay away tonight, but no promises after that."

She bit her lip staring off toward her windows but not looking at them, "He wanted to come here?"

"Yeah… yeah he did."

She bit her bottom lip harder, turning it white in part. "What did he say?"

Greg rubbed his face, contemplating the effect telling her might have. But it could turn the tide a bit, he thought. "I told him to leave you alone… and he said fine"

"Fine? So much expression—"

"A broken, tired and hurt _fine_ , Molls."

He listened as she drew a hard breath and sighed, "Whatever… we'll see then I guess."

The calm in her voice and lowered shoulders reassured him that if nothing else, weariness was winning over anger. 

Greg's phone buzzed in his pocket. He needed to check it.

"Hey just gonna go to the loo if that's alright… before I leave."

She nodded and he watched her retreat into her own thoughts again as he left the room.

He closed the door softly, and lifted his mobile out to see one text from Mycroft.

**_I trust Miss Hooper is unharmed._ **

Greg typed, pausing to consider how vague to keep the answer. **_Relatively speaking, yeah. Officer's going patrol outside tonight though._ **

A quick reply. **_Please assure her we will make sure she comes to no harm._ **

Greg wanted to say it was too late. But now might not be the time. **_She's got that. Your brother though._ **

**_He's receiving treatment and observation tonight as well as John._ **

Observation to make sure he didn't relapse. Though if there was any night for it, Greg wouldn't have blamed him in the least for once. Mycroft was there. And they would talk tomorrow so why not press a little? See if he could fish something out. 

Greg hesitated and then typed, **_She told me about the phone call._ **

A long wait for the response. He knew he couldn't stay in the loo much longer. 

**_An unfortunate event following several others. We'll discuss it in depth tomorrow. Please inform her I will speak to her as well in the morning._ **

**_Will do. Get rest._ **Greg assumed he wouldn't answer after that text and Mycroft proved his theory. 

He'd catch a cab when he left. The whisky found its way into this brain, fuzzing it as the exhaustion washed over him. 

When he returned to her sitting room, he spied her white knuckle gripping her mobile.

"Mycroft text me too. So… looking forward to meetings tomorrow I guess. " She tossed her phone to the sofa as she sat, leaning on her legs rubbing her eyes and face. 

Greg cleared his throat. "You gonna be OK by yourself?"

She shrugged, but he noted it seemed relaxed. "Yeah… I'm OK for now. Toby won't come out until you leave, probably. But me and him will have a good cuddle and fall asleep to some telly."

Greg stepped and squatted next to her, seeking her eyes for assurance. "I mean this. Call me, text me. Anything. Do I need to take that bottle from here? Anything else?"

Molly smiled, weary but genuine and he sighed in relief. 

"No, thank you Greg. I'll see you in a few hours I guess. Go get some rest."

He laid a hand on her shoulder and patted as he stood. "Got a bit of a nap in the car on the way over but another wouldn't hurt. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow. You want me to pick you up?'

She shook her head, "He's sending a car. See you there then?"

"Yeah. We'll get answers, all of us. That's something, I think?" He shrugged as he walked to the door and she stood, following behind him. 

She smiled again, sad and resigned, he noted. "It's something alright."

A desire to hug her came over him as he opened the door. But she'd already retreated in her thoughts he suspected in her faint goodnight. He replied the same and waited until she closed the door and he heard the locks click before he stepped to the officer's car for a short chat as he waited for a cab. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry there was the delay it was a lot!


	3. Mycroft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was an ease to all of it. Stepping high into a helicopter to leave Hell behind. It can run itself for now, Mycroft mused.
> 
> But as they circled before they landed, he knew he’d only ascended so far up. In Hell, he remained.

There was an ease to all of it. Stepping high into a helicopter to leave Hell behind. It can run itself for now, Mycroft mused.

But as they circled before they landed, he knew he’d only ascended so far up. In Hell, he remained. 

He understood that he should be in a hospital, not walking on wet grass slick underfoot as the rotors slowed enough for him to jog away as they took off without him. The throb at his temples, the blood pounding he loathed to perceive, overwhelming but for a moment. 

The tight pressure at his chest softened at the appearance of Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade. But the bands that loosened wound all the tighter by the man’s look. 

Miss Hooper. Lestrade was calling Molly Hooper. No one else reasonably the cause for the apparent unease Lestrade displayed. A voicemail recording audible as Lestrade pulled his phone from his ear and ended it and though logic told him she was unharmed, something else gnawed at the edge of that thought. He closed his eyes to shut it out and nodded at the DI to keep trying.

Mycroft held his breath, attention fixed on Lestrade’s face until relaxed. His excited voice assured him she’d answered and Mycroft’s ears pricked up, focused only on Lestrade’s side of the conversation. Quite easy even over the surrounding bustle both as the man shouted. 

Brow furrowed, Mycroft strained to hear any of her words. Lestrade dropped to a squat, and he waited. 

“Because... God, this is gonna be a lot to explain in one breath.” Lestrade sighed and glanced up at Mycroft. Whatever Lestrade knew, Miss Hooper needed to know as well. He nodded back.

“Molly, you got a call from Sherlock earlier, yeah?”

Lestrade silent and waiting. 

“Molly… are you—”

Mycroft understood that what she said on her end, it stung. Lestrade’s face fell.

“It’s complicated but something to do with a sister who set up this sick game. We just got John out of a well earlier.”

Mycroft glanced in the distance. The figures of his brother and Watson at an ambulance but on their feet. Almost calming the image, and he turned his attention back to Lestrade. 

“He’s alive… and I guess OK.”

Lestrade sighed into the phone and Mycroft perceived it was a question about Sherlock.

“That’s a lie… and you’re not OK. Sally is at yours.” Lestrade gulped. “Go see her, OK?”

He was pleading with her, and Mycroft closed his eyes. How deleterious that phone call he witnessed is still unclear even now as he stretched his mind and hearing. He could only estimate from Lestrade’s face. He needed information, but it would have to wait until tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. Tonight’s longer than any he’d endured in some time.

“Molly…” Lestrade pleaded, shutting his eyes tight. “Besides, we need a statement. Go back home, please or—”

Lestrade glanced at him, an apology written across his face.

“You know who is gonna send a car after you.”

Mycroft cocked his head, mouth open, but closed his eyes again as let his chin fall to his chest. Decidedly untrue, but it implied resistance on her end. Mycroft pulled out his mobile and text Anthea that Miss Hooper may need collection and to follow the path of her Oyster card and stuck it back in his pocket with a sigh. 

His head shot up when Lestrade swore and begged her. “Molly, as your friend, please do this… you’ll know everything later, I’ll make sure of it — wait... hold on... hey get him!”

Sherlock sprinting at them, but before Mycroft could yell, Lestrade tossed his mobile to him and sprang to action. Mycroft caught it and turned back. Behind him, his brother screamed. Guttural and desperate. Mycroft drew a steadying breath, ignoring the anxiety threatening to close his throat. Sherlock is safe, and he needed assurance that Miss Hooper was as well. 

He lifted the phone. “I hope you are safe, Miss Hooper.” 

“Yes. I was just out walking, but I’m headed back to mine as instructed,” she snapped at him. There’s the evidence, he thought, but relief washed over him; she only seemed angry and not in harm’s way.

“Thank you… you will know all the details soon,” he sighed. More yelling in the background, but he cupped his hand on the phone to block it out. 

“Were you there?”

His mind paused at her tone. Now was not the time for such questions, he mused.

“As I said, you will know—”

“Don’t you dare.” She’d hissed it in a whisper, something wholly new to him from Miss Hooper. He needed her home safe as much as everyone else here. So why not answer it, he thought.

He breathed out hard. “John and I were there.” 

“Oh my god...” 

He heard her sniff on the other end and feared that the anger would turn to tears. His energy for such hysterics was low at any point, but he simply did not possess any now. 

“Miss Hooper—”

“Please, just... spare me at this point. Today’s been hard enough.” She sniffed again, but the resignation in her voice released the knot in his throat. 

“We’ll talk soon. Please proceed to your home as soon as possible.”

And she was gone as he ended the call. Mycroft let his arm drop, weariness washing over as he turned his gaze from the ground to his brother.

Broken. One more time. But did the curve in the steel spine he’d helped his Sherlock build finally snap at the bend? He couldn’t fathom yet.

But he could make calls and put them in a private hospital for observation. Control the narrative a little bit longer as it all comes to a head. His parents will arrive there and John will remain with Sherlock and be debriefed with the family. Something to do and a plan keeps his heart pumping even as the blood drained from his feet. 

He walked unsteadily to stand in front of his kneeling brother and John reached out placing a hand on Mycroft’s arm. He stared at it as John spoke, the weight on his arm light and unnerving.

John sighed. “It’s been an… exciting night but I think—”

“We will go to a private hospital in a moment. Car’s pulling around. We’ll debrief there and sit for observation,” Mycroft said. 

John frowned. “For—”

“Concussions, other medical care” Mycroft’s eye lifted to his brother, his chest aching. Tightly closed, Sherlock’s eyes searched under his eyelids. His mind racing so fast Mycroft sensed the electricity firing.

“Sir…”

A man at Mycroft’s elbow. The driver. They’ll get into the car, secured and onward to the rest of their lives. They’ll drive on and start the unravelling… or perhaps silence for a bit. He fervently wished for nothing else. 

Mycroft licked his lips, his tone light. “Our parents will be at the hospital, Sherlock.”

His brother’s face tightened, but he stayed planted in place.

John removed his hand from Mycroft, leaning down as he placed it on Sherlock’s shoulder, speaking low. “We need to go to hospital. Sherlock. Next step... that’s it.”

“I can’t… She… I” Sherlock’s voice shuddered.

“Sherlock… we made it. We all made it,” John murmured, and Mycroft noted the panic. Would one feed off the other? Time to switch methods. 

Mycroft huffed. “Enough of these dramatics. Get in the car. “

Sherlock’s eyes opened wide and jumped to Mycroft. He stood up, stepping until their faces were close. Mycroft didn’t blink as they held each other’s stare. 

“How many times?”

“You want answers.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “You understand—”

“It wasn’t a question. Get in the car.” Mycroft pointed at the vehicle.

Sherlock’s jaw clenched, but he shoved past his brother, shouldering him hard as he stepped to the car and in the back seat.

Mycroft folded his arms and motioned to an open-mouthed John. A look of disgust and confusion washed across it, but he turned and walked to join Sherlock. 

One last scan across the scene. He couldn’t put a classification on why he wanted it committed to his memory. Perhaps it’s the last step before the true aftermath. Purgatory. One last linger here before uncertainty once again as he sat and closed the door himself.

-:-

The ride tension filled as John passed out between him and his brother, head hung back in a light snore. But otherwise silent. He’d fooled himself into thinking this the preferred state and desperately wished it to be true.

Sherlock shivered, leaning against the window, fist clutching and unfurling with an unnerving varying speed. Mycroft sensed the vibration through the seat. He studied every movement out of the corner of his eye and it kept his own mind unaware of his similar shuddering. 

Paperwork signing Athena left to him a comfort. Bureaucracy better than anything they could put in his veins, he thought. But it all went by so quickly, and once again after a brief exam, it left them to their own thoughts. The same three that began yesterday together, alone in a bright sterile room. No puzzles now. Just bare truth sitting on tongues set behind shut teeth. 

Sherlock, after some begging for pain meds with both John and Mycroft advising against, pouted himself asleep, or some near approximation. One more check from the Doctor. One more text from Anthea that his parents would arrive soon. 

Emails. All backlogged, the number jumping as the weight on his chest sunk in more, pressing down on his sternum. He only looked up from his mobile at a huff from John.

John stood slowly and shuffled out to the hall, motioning for Mycroft to follow him. One last look at Sherlock and he stepped out. With folded arms, Mycroft waited.

“What we went through... ” John licked his lips, mirroring Mycroft. “We didn’t have to do any of it... did we?”

“You speak as if I planned such,” Mycroft shifted his hands to his pockets. “An inherited problem I understood contained. I wished none of this on us I—”

John stepped closer as a nurse passed by. He waited until she was out of earshot. “He never knew… everything he has struggled with—”

“I can surmise the path of your reasoning, but I assure you it’s more complicated than your surface experience this—”

“Surface?” John cut him off and laughed with a deep huff. “Years, Mycroft. Years all to this night.” 

Mycroft waited, letting the man pace forward and back. 

“I…” John closed his eyes, scrunching his face and chuckling. Mycroft only stared. “I get it… shockingly enough, I get it, but all the same... I want to punch you square in the jaw.”

That same indignant look his brother mentioned to him before. He’d seen it many times himself, though perhaps he left it unrecorded in his mind to maintain respect. 

“You may do so,” Mycroft’s lips lifted faintly, and he held John’s stare. “But you’ll find the consequences more far-reaching than when you kicked your boot into my brother’s ribs.”

John’s eyes wide as his jaw fell into his chest. 

Mycroft squinted as he cocked his head. “Did you believe that little incident slipped by? But please do try if you feel unable to control your urges.” Mycroft read his hesitation and logical fear wash over John. 

“Ok… OK!” John threw his hands up.

“Welcome to reality.”

John closed his eyes. “But yeah that… Here’s the thing… he’s just finding out, isn’t he…”

“The dog worked for so long… so very long” Mycroft said, shaking his head.

“It’s not right.”

Mycroft shrugged. “Right is relative. The path set before me by others. I survived… as did my brother. Survival, it’s something you comprehend—“

John leaned back against the wall, glancing into the room. “We survived tonight.”

“And we should be dead… but there’s the linchpin. She never wanted us dead… Well, least of all her baby brother. The care diminishes from there, I’m afraid.” Mycroft smiled as he said it. The look of pity from John at the end was surprisingly welcome. 

John rubbed his face, pulling down on the skin.

“She was my therapist…” John shook his head. “And also… Oh God. I… I—”

“Will need to see a specialist. I cannot be certain if she didn’t… influence your psyche.”

“You think?”

“An expert will find out.”

“Sherlock…”

“He’ll receive the best care possible, of course.”

John snickered. “Always does, eh?”

“Perhaps you need to find your own peaceful placement with grief.” Mycroft squinted, reading John’s reactions.

John mirrored the gestures. “Hmm?”

Mycroft stuck his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the doorway. “You fail to comprehend the measured steps required... I believe. Gram by gram, you let it trickle in and out. Sherlock shoved too many needles to find his measure, pushing to extremes.”

John said with a huff, “You know, I start to feel pity for you and you start that—”

Mycroft stopped him with a glare. “I’m not asking for sympathy or any assuage of my guilt. It is mine and mine alone to bear. I’ve kept my brother alive by threads before. Perhaps once this passes, his mind can be free.”

John paced again. “What about Molly?”

“What about Miss Hooper? She is safe.” 

John shook his head as he stepped close to hold Mycroft’s stare, “Safe… it’s not the word for this. We were both there. We heard and saw something that shouldn’t have happened. Or at least neither of us should have been there for it.”

Mycroft drew a breath through his nose.”How many times have you feared for your life?”

“What?”

“It’s a simple question, John.”

“I… I don’t feel like counting them to be honest.” John shrugged as he looked away to the wall. 

“And yet we are still here.” Mycroft smiled. Faint, but it built with each word. “It adds up over time. But it was a choice we all made.” 

Mycroft discerned John’s self awareness was limited, but he hoped the point hit. 

“Was it though? I don’t know that Molly—“

Mycroft’s turn to snicker. “I think perhaps you don’t know Miss Hooper at all… or do you not recall she was essential to the strategy that saved his life years ago?”

John remained silent, his eyes turning looking through the doorway to Sherlock, still asleep. 

Mycroft continued. “You relegated her to her Godmother status in your despair. But she knew every plan. Has since Sherlock chose her to.”

“She always noticed more… saw more… thanks for reminding me that I’m his best friend and I know nothing.” John shook his head as he put his hand on his hips.

Mycroft glanced at his brother. Unconvinced he was asleep, but he spoke freely his opinion as if he were “She didn’t deserve that though… she didn’t deserve any of it. Out of any of us…”

John sighed. “And I or Sherlock did?”

“No… well, perhaps.” Mycroft folded his arms across his chest now, keeping his stare on his brother, waiting to see the movement he expected. “She knew the risks of her… attachments. Years of it.”

John shifted closer to him, and he turned his glare on Mycroft.

“Are you not also aware? Is it cruel that she had to endure a similar torture as us? Certainly. My sister gets right to the pith, doesn’t she? We all have choices we must reckon with. I’m relieved for my brother that Miss Hooper was not in harm’s way in the end. Do not be mistaken in that.”

“You’re exhausting, you know that?” John shook his head as he folded his arms, clicking his tongue. 

Mycroft only smiled back. “Indubitably. You will not find satisfaction in my logic. I do care. To a fault.”

Both men let the air rest between them, all the words uttered and left to linger in their minds. Mycroft soaked in the small noises of the hospital working around him, a peaceful hush of efficiency in madness.

“Mycroft!”

He closed his eyes tight at the voice of their mother crying out down the hall. One more turn of the circle. Still in Hell. 

**Next Morning**

The morning light remained grey and dark like the night before. Not that Mycroft would see it. He’d been in his bunker office since before morning light.

Released from hospital care, he came here first. Anthea met him and in silence prepared paperwork in neat stacks on his desk. He showered and shaved, suiting up in dark and reserved grey. And started right to work. Today was debriefing day. The clean up. His speciality and comfort, but he suspected this meeting would be the most troublesome. Miss Hooper agreed to come with no hesitation. But he took this not as a relief but as a sign. So he prepared himself mentally up to the last second.

“She’s here,” Anthea buzzed through to him. 

The door clicked, and he stood with haste, matching Miss Hooper’s stare when she appeared and Anthea stepped away. 

“Please come in Miss Hooper and sit.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. 

“Molly.”

She’d said it so low but resolute. He smiled. “Hmm? Yes, though I would rather—”

“Call me Molly, I’m not a child or your student.”

No doubting now her mood, he mused. Tenacious as she’d been in their past meetings. He studied her glare and her appearance. A dour grey dress and forest green cardigan. Hair pulled in a tight ponytail. Her own sort of armour, perhaps. 

“Molly then.” The name left his mouth with discomfort, and he recognised the battle that lay before him. 

“Why is it so hard for you?” Molly shook her head with a huff. “Legitimate question, maybe it’ll give me insight about—”

“My brother?” No, sadly you will find…” Mycroft interrupted, eyes wide now.

“Same disdain for all things… in the normal spectrum of human emotion?” She said with no hint of irony in her tone. 

They both glared unyielding. Perhaps he was unprepared for her after all. He’d expected a rain shower rather than this storm. 

“Pardon but we do have a classified debriefing to complete.” He shifted to sit hoping she would follow but was left standing when she did not. 

“I deserve answers” Her stare unblinking.

His the same. “And you shall receive them.”

Her breathing he noted. Anger still there. But it was an emotion. His brother would pester him until he told how she reacted. Exhausting the entire experience and he wished it was done. What could he offer to her?

“Please,” he said. “Lets sit.”

She relented her stare and sat. He breathed in relief as he sat behind his desk, turning his attention to the folders in front of him.

He lifted one with care and slid to her. “Would like to read a file or shall I tell you— “

“What did she want with me?”

He contemplated the question, and tapped the folder, as a reminder to him and her both. “My brother was an object of her preoccupation. Anything connected to him fodder.”

“Why didn’t she just kidnap me then? Why did she do what she did?” 

He sensed something desperate in her tone. 

“You need to understand Miss… Molly, her obsession is a deep psychosis from her youth. Her intellect only gave it effectiveness in the precision of her targets. She knew exactly where the most damage would occur.”

“What all has she done? I need to know.”

He swallowed hard. “In short, she murdered Sherlock’s childhood friend and attempted to burn down our home.”

She sunk in the chair as she closed her eyes. “Good God…”

He continued, leaning back in his chair. “Our uncle put her into care and when I was of age I took over the position of maintaining her imprisonment.”

He let the room breathe as he watched thoughts manifest into movements across her face. He sat up when her jaw tightened. 

“So she never got to see any of you. Nothing but… “ she said, a deep frown growing. 

“Her ability to manipulate is uncanny,” he sniffed. “ Moriarty, I understand your interaction with him was limited…” He looked for a reaction but nothing changed and he continued. “But even he couldn’t resist her manipulation.”

She furrowed her brow. “Wait… so this all… it all… was she?”

“Yes. Well…” He pondered who influenced more. “Yes. Moriarty his own element but she… amplified his obsession.”

“Sherlock though… oh God he’s aware now.” Her voice cracked and he stiffened, fearing now the shift would turn to tears.

“Yes… Redbeard is no longer the substitute”

“Redbeard… the dog?” Her tone lowered.

He sighed. With a nod he answered. “We never had a dog.”

She licked her lips. “You’re telling me he substituted…”

“My uncle did. And it worked for many years.”

“You bastards.” She’d gritted it though her teeth, looking up through her brow. 

He shifted in his seat, leaning back. “Pardon?”

She closed her eyes. But tears no longer his fear. Her tone was something more clinical as she spoke he realised. “The mind realises its own truth. It knows the lie is exactly that. But the dissonance, it’s always there. Surely you must understand the effect.”

He nodded. “Trauma is a complicated— “

“Oh fuck off,” she yelled. 

Here it is, he thought, the moment he expected sooner. “Miss Hooper please—” 

“Molly… How long has he assumed he was a sociopath when really it was trauma induced?” She leaned forward, laying a hand on the desk. 

He shook his head. No words would calm her or assuage her from the conversation, and he’d understood it was a possibility when he invited her here for the debriefing. He remembered their previous one as he prepared her for the aftermath of Sherlock’s death. All at the behest of his brother. 

He drew a careful measure of breath through his nose, avoiding her glare. “Since I see you insist on a different briefing than what we agreed on—”

“Answer me. Please… I need to know.” 

He met her stare. Dark eyes intent on boring a hole through him. 

“His entire adult life.” He’d mumbled it out, noting his own shame mixing in. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had this conversion on so little sleep. 

Her voice lowered, but anger coloured it still. “How could you? Do you not realise the effect?”

Mycroft sighed as he folded his arms across his chest, “The damage was done. That could not be changed and he was a child, bewildered. We only wished to mitigate—”

She huffed. “So just perpetuate it?”

“I did not start the process once again,” He huffed back at her. But he gathered his thoughts and spoke calmly. “Once I was of age Sherlock had started down the path he’s been on since… his emotional state is—”

“Still partly a consequence of yours.”

He shook his head, mouth agape. “Pardon, are you—”

“Yes… yes I am.” Her voice unwavering and her glare unblinking. 

He licked his lips and gestured his hands, “Please elaborate your assessment and perhaps it will illuminate mine.”

He stared as she pulled a deep breath through her nose, a tick in her face as he watched the words travel across her folded brow. She didn’t want to say them. She didn’t desire to be here anymore than him. But as she sat up, he assumed she’d speak the words anyway, head cocked to the side as she looked at his desk rather than him. 

“I don’t presume to know you... I’m not sure anyone apart from your parents, perhaps Anthea and your brother truly know you… “ She drew another breath through her nose as her eyes turned to his. “But I do see now the methods you encouraged in him caused more pain. What works for you, if it even does but… let’s just assume it does. It only confused him. No wonder he sought out logic above all else. It was the only thing that made sense. Emotions aren’t as quantifiable.”

Mycroft opened his mouth, but Molly spoke before he could find his footing.

“But I comprehend you did it out of love for him… because if you didn’t love him… you would’ve let him die a long time ago. I know that kind of love… even if you might dismiss it.”

He dropped his glance downward as images flashed behind them, all the moments up to yesterday. Every near loss, balancing every piece of the puzzle alone. All leading up to them ready to put the gun against their own head less than 24 hours ago.

He’d not realised how long he sat silent, eyes shut tight until her unexpected softer voice pierced through. 

“Mycroft… I’m sorry if I… I pushed…”

He sniffed and recovered with a faint smile, though he dared not look at her directly. 

“We are alive, Miss Hooper. That is our reality. And one I strive to be content in today. I cannot speak of my brother’s… emotions as to the events yesterday. Only that he will unravel their purpose as he does. “

He paused, laying an unsteady hand on the folder on his desk. “I’ll have a copy of the file sent to you today. It would seem prudent for your understanding of matters at hand. You have security clearance to read them and seeing as this briefing went… off topic? Yes. It would be a better use of both our energies and time for you to read it on your own. I’m available by text if you have any questions.”

He risked a glance at her watching her nod.

“One more thing before you go, Miss Hooper. And understand this is not a command... but rather, an entreaty.”

“You want me to speak to Sherlock if he asks to.” She sighed as she rubbed her forehead.

He offered a tight smile. “I accept any reluctance but—”

“He needs me to… he always does.” She half smiled as she said it, melancholy dripping off each word. “I’ll talk to him when he is ready.”

Mycroft found her infinitely more dangerous in this moment than anyone else. She appealed both to logic and sentiment, often in the same thought. If his brother decided to face his affections for her, his survival was now entirely in her hands and nothing in Mycroft’s reach or ability could change that course. They spoke the words of affirmation into an undeniable existence. 

He stood, signalling the end of the meeting as he buzzed Anthea to show her out. “Thank you again, Miss Hooper. I wish you well the rest of your day.”

She held out her hand, and he glanced at it for a breath before taking it and matching her firm shake. 

“And one last time… please call me Molly.”

He nodded, shaking her hand still. “Thank you, Molly. We’ll be in touch.” He dropped his grip as Anthea guided Molly out of the room. He sat back at his desk, his phone lit up but he leaned the chair back, closing his eyes instead. 

Maybe he moved up a circle after all. But in his own Hell he remained, and he prepared to crawl the rest of the way up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cringes* ok i see this took awhile but you know *gestures at everything*
> 
> Reminder: each chapter builds the timeline but all start at the same point with each POV. John POV will be next after this and go to the next afternoon.


	4. John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drowning. Not that he desired the alternative he’d feared only moments before. He liked his odds with water instead of a bullet any day. But today might be when his luck ran out. 
> 
> Maybe being best friends with Sherlock Holmes was a mistake. 
> 
> But there’s Sherlock, pulling him out from the depths, and he wanted only to laugh. He did when he caught his breath, laying on the grass warm compared to the intended grave. John hadn’t even worried about Rosie being without him; she had everyone else and the entire world. A lot less broken than him who smiled and loved in an unhaunted manner he wasn’t sure he’d found his way out of yet.

Drowning. Not that he desired the alternative he’d feared only moments before. He liked his odds with water instead of a bullet any day. But today might be when his luck ran out. 

Maybe being best friends with Sherlock Holmes was a mistake. 

But there’s Sherlock, pulling him out from the depths, and he wanted only to laugh. He did when he caught his breath, laying on the grass warm compared to the intended grave. John hadn’t even worried about Rosie being without him; she had everyone else and the entire world. A lot less broken than him who smiled and loved in an unhaunted manner he wasn’t sure he’d found his way out of yet.

In the waters, he envisioned Mary as it lapped higher. Not as before, not sitting there chatting like a ghost, directing his decisions. Her haunting only in silent memory, laying in bed naked smiling for him. A pure vision of his love, a beacon calling him to find that peace again. Or perhaps peace for the first time. To just let it go. 

He thought he might be suicidal at times, but it’s the other way round. He feared death so much he’d sought it on the regular. Like a game. Every win he needed another so he could throw up big two fingers up to his greatest enemy of all. As the water dried sticky on his skin, he gestured that in his mind.

Sherlock chuckled with him, but he understood it was reactionary. Something they did every time they cheated death, but death lost its meaning over time with John. Just a murky mess like where he left. The ambulance is a special grounding place with bright lights, resetting the world right. 

And he was bored again.

Sherlock sat silent at the end of the vehicle, a mass of black blending into night on the edges while they asked John questions, examining him. He spied Greg joining as they examined his ears. When the two fought over a blanket, he snickered to himself. How it’s all a big circle with the lot of them. Rinse and repeat. But how close was it this time?

“Mr Watson, did you swallow much water?”

“Hmm?” he cocked his head back to the paramedic, but he strained to pick up Greg and Sherlock’s talking. 

“Water… it was rather brackish—”

“Not a lot… Bah, I’m fine um—”

“Let me see your throat then,” and they forced John to accept the medical exam and care.

Unable to understand the conversation now to his frustration, especially when Sherlock jumped up into Greg’s face.

He heard her name.

Molly.

He swore as he closed his eyes, agitated memories flooding behind his eyelids, flickering.

Something he’d missed. Not that he didn’t miss a lot. It wasn’t his strength; he was the muscle in this partnership. Most of the time, anyway. But then Sherlock saved him in the end. 

But Molly… he thought… well, he’d thought little about the scenario. Her crush seemed long gone, even if her former fiance was too. But her friendship is a lighthouse in dark times to them both. Had he missed the inclination between them? Something more mutual?

The paramedic left him alone at last, and he stepped with care to sit beside Sherlock.

Silence with strobing lights and inked night. Same scene as it always is.

“I don’t know, John… are we out of that well yet?”

John stared at his friend, observing the lines in his face tighten as his bandaged fists mirrored it and shook.

He swallowed hard, attempting a smile at Sherlock, who wasn’t even looking at him. “We made it… we’re here and we can... unravel it all—”

“Everything changes.”

“Um.. yeah,, I mean… fuck. Your sister tried to kill us, so… there’s that. That’s... a lot to think about I’m sure.”

He watched Sherlock turn his head away and close his eyes. 

“I’m… yes, of course,” Sherlock stood and began a tight pace as a helicopter landed in a short distance.

“Mycroft made it,” John said with a half smile and looked back and forth between the distant brothers, shifting to his feet.

The elder brother stopped at Greg, and John noted some agitation in his face before it turned away. 

He stared at his friend, breathing out heavy “Sherlock, we all made it, even Molly is okay.”

“Is she?” His voice was too soft for the scene, and John leaned in as Sherlock paused in front of him. 

“Well… she’s alive and I’m sure Greg’s talking to her right now… perhaps?”

But that was a mistake. Sherlock ran without warning, full sprint to Greg, shoving John out of the way. 

He recovered and was on Sherlock’s heels when Greg and two officers stopped him first. “Sherlock! Stop fighting!”

  
  


The grunts from his friend so desperate and ring in his ears. _What would he do?_ John pondered.

“I… I’m” Sherlock’s breath heaving, struggling for words John couldn’t predict. 

Greg stepped up, speaking low to Sherlock as John strained to hear as the officers walked away. “Stuck here for now. I don’t know what all happened but ain’t no good coming from you running to her.”

The DI closed his eyes, and John glanced between him and Sherlock standing at their sides. 

“I’m sorry, Sherlock… but we all made it. We’ll get it sorted,” Greg said, his voice cracking as he laid his palms on Sherlock’s shoulders. With a hard pat, he removed his hands and stepped back, nodding at John.

“How did she sound?” Sherlock murmured. 

So he had been talking to Molly, John thought, and sighed in relief. 

Greg shrugged reflexively as he rubbed the back of his head. “Mad.”

Sherlock’s eyes shot up. “Angry or—”

“Not sure you need to focus on this—” John offered, trying to get Sherlock’s attention. 

“Greg.” Sherlock’s voice resolute and John stared waiting. 

Their friend rubbed the base of his skull all the harder “A bit of both. Just let her be... I mean it.”

He pointed a finger, eyes wide, and John checked to see where Mycroft was, spying him at a distance still on the phone. With Molly, he assumed by the look on his face. _What could he add to this?_ John pitied her. 

Sherlock frowned, shaking his head. “But I can’t… I shouldn’t... I—”

His friend’s stammering drew his attention, and he stopped him.

“Sherlock… listen to Greg for tonight, OK?” John lifted his hand to Sherlock’s shoulder, holding it tight, pressing in to ground him. 

“Fine.”

Defeat. He read that tone so well, and he breathed easily that he wouldn’t have to assist in physically securing him as Sherlock kneeled down. Last thing they needed was him stealing a car and speeding off. 

Sherlock’s brother approached, as weary as the lot of them, John thought. He placed a hand on Mycroft’s arm out of reflex.

John sighed. “It’s been an… exciting night, but I think—”

“We will go to a private hospital in a moment. Car’s pulling around. We’ll debrief there and sit for observation,” Mycroft said with a steady tone, as if describing the weather.

John frowned. “For—”

“Concussions, other medical care” Mycroft’s eyes lifted from staring at John’s hand and to his brother, eyes unblinking. 

“Sir…”

A man at Mycroft’s elbow that John guessed was their driver. 

Mycroft licked his lips and John’s brow furrowed as the tone shifted to an even odder cheer. “Our parents will be at the hospital, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stayed in his kneel, eyes shut tight.

John removed his hand from Mycroft, leaning down as he placed it on Sherlock’s shoulder, speaking close to her ear. “We need to go to hospital. Sherlock. Next step... that’s it.” There was no arguing with the elder Holmes on this anyway, John mused. 

“I can’t… She… I” Sherlock’s voice shuddered. 

“Sherlock… we made it. We all made it,” John murmured, unsure what Sherlock might do. He hoped he complied because he was too tired for another sprint.

Mycroft huffed. “Enough of these dramatics. Get in the car. “

Sherlock’s eyes opened wide and jumped to Mycroft. Sherlock stood, releasing John’s hand from his shoulder with a shrug as he stepped to meet his brother eye to eye.

John opened his mouth, but words never formed. 

“How many times?” Sherlock murmured. 

“You want answers.” Mycroft’s smile slipped up sly and John felt the blood rise in his neck. 

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “You understand—”

“It wasn’t a question. Get in the car.” Mycroft pointed at the vehicle.

John watched, unsure, as Sherlock’s jaw clenched. Would he punch him? He’d kind of like to see it, and not that he’d stop him. But Sherlock only shouldered his brother with forward force as he passed by him and slid in the back seat without another word.

John huffed. Mycroft folded his arms and motioned to him and the door with no indication of gratitude.

One last look of irritation thrown at the elder Holmes before he slid in beside his friend.

Sherlock shivered, leaning against the window, fist clutching and unfurling with an unnerving varying speed.

John sensed it through the seat, but ignoring how he felt it on both sides of him. He couldn’t put his finger on why Mycroft’s presence was irritating. He’d get that to it later. 

He listened to Sherlock’s breathing relax as they travelled in silence. The weariness the entire day wrought washed over him in the dark of the car, and the heater toasted away the damp. Soon his head fell to the side and dreamless sleep held him until the lights of London roused him.

One more hospital, one more step, John thought. But the white clean light burned into his retinas, replacing much darker images. He’d take it any way he could win it.

“No.” He’d said it too many times already

Sherlock huffed, holding up his hands,” John, I’m still bleeding—”

“Nope. They see your chart anyway… you might get half a paracetamol.”

“Mycroft?” Sherlock raised his voice an octave.

The brother sighed with a slight smile “I deferred to Dr Watson.”

Sherlock pouted himself asleep, and John let concern wash over him. A never ending fight against him trying to escape chemically. His eyes turned to Mycroft who leaned against the wall engrossed in his mobile. “Already back to work,” John huffed.

He motioned for Mycroft to follow him to the hall. One last look at Sherlock and he stepped out. With folded arms, Mycroft waited.

“What we went through...” John licked his lips, mirroring Mycroft. “We didn’t have to do any of it... did we?”

“You speak as if I planned such,” Mycroft put his hands to his pockets, rocking on his heels. “An inherited problem I understood contained. I wished none of this on us I—”

John stepped closer to the man as a nurse passed by. He waited until she was out of earshot. “He never knew… everything he has struggled with—”

“I can surmise the path of your reasoning, but I assure you it’s more complicated than your surface experience this—”

“Surface?” John cut him off with a dry chuckle. “Years, Mycroft. Years all to this night.” 

John paced forward and back, unsure how to say how he truly felt. The anger crept in the back of his neck, stiffening the muscles to an ache. 

“I…” John closed his eyes, scrunching his face. Mycroft only stared as John opened his eyes again to a glare. “I get it… shockingly enough, I get it, but all the same... I want to punch you square in the jaw.”

Sherlock would’ve blinked, but Mycroft? Not even a tick. John’s fist clenched at his side the longer he looked. 

“You may do so,” Mycroft’s lips lifted faintly, and he matched John’s stare. “But you’ll find the consequences more far-reaching than when you kicked your boot into my brother’s ribs.”

John dropped his jaw tight, tucked into his chest. Shame peddled once again in his direction. Sitting like a stone held under his chin as his breath slowed. He’d never been right, really. One more edge ragged and when he lost her, that small hope of normality, everything blasted away. The rug pulled out from under him and he kicked the proverbial dog instead of facing his own failure. 

Mycroft squinted as he cocked his head. “Did you believe that little incident slipped by? But please do try if you feel unable to control your urges.” 

“Ok… OK!” John threw his hands up.

“Welcome to reality.”

_There it was. The counterpoint he needed._ John closed his eyes as he spoke slowly. “But yeah, that… Here’s the thing… he’s just finding out, isn’t he…”

“The dog worked for so long… so very long,” Mycroft said, shaking his head.

John glanced down the hall and back at Mycroft. “It’s not right.” And it wasn’t. He’d done wrong, but he’d not changed his friend’s whole concept of his life. The thought of that is still overwhelming. 

Mycroft shrugged at him.. “Right is relative. The path set before me by others. I survived… as did my brother. Survival, it’s something you comprehend—“

John leaned back against the wall, glancing into the room. “We survived tonight.”

“And we should be dead… but there’s the linchpin. She never wanted us dead… Well, least of all her baby brother. The care diminishes from there, I’m afraid.” Mycroft smiled as he said it. 

John got that sentiment. All sacrifices because of someone else. He rubbed his face, pulling down on the skin as the realisation washed over him. 

“She was my therapist…” John shook his head. “And also… Oh God. I… I—”

“Will need to see a specialist. I cannot be certain if she didn’t… influence your psyche.”

Perhaps he and Sherlock had more in common than he realised. Could she? Could that explain the swirling anger that made no sense? “You think?”

Mycroft sighed. “An expert will find out.”

“Sherlock…”

“He’ll receive the best care possible, of course.”

John snickered. “Always does, eh?”

“You need to find your own peaceful placement with grief.” Mycroft squinted, reading John’s reactions.

John mirrored the gestures. “Hmm?”

Why was Mycroft trying to talk to him like they are… mates? He’s never assumed that. Every step has been either working for Sherlock or against his worse nature at the behest of his elder brother. But always a business transaction, as if Mycroft were incapable of any other exchange. 

Mycroft stuck his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the doorway. “You fail to comprehend the measured steps required... I believe. Gram by gram, you let it trickle in and out. Sherlock shoved too many needles to find his measure, pushing to extremes.”

John responded with a huff, “You know, I start to feel pity for you and you start that —” but Mycroft’s glare cut off his words

“I’m not asking for sympathy or any assuage of my guilt. It is mine and mine alone to bear,” Mycroft said with a tiny gulp John spotted. I’ve kept my brother alive by threads before. Perhaps once this passes, his mind can be free.”

Better to drop this, John mused. He’s not had enough sleep for amateur therapy for Mycroft. But his thoughts strayed to another. Someone who he’d known in the peripheral always. Trusted and yet utterly a stranger to him, if he’d been honest with himself. 

Something deeper and darker between her and Sherlock, well hidden until today. 

John paced again, pushing the energy away. “What about Molly?”

“What about Miss Hooper? She is safe.” Mycroft shrugged.

John shook his head as he stepped close to hold Mycroft’s stare, “Safe… it’s not the word for this. We were both there. We heard and saw something that shouldn’t have happened. Or at least neither of us should have been there for it.”

Mycroft sighed his nose.” How many times have you feared for your life?”

“What?” John didn’t understand the jump. What did this have to do with Molly?

“It’s a simple question, John.”

“I… I don’t feel like counting them to be honest.” John shrugged as he looked away to the wall. Heaviness settled on his shoulders and he wished he could sit. 

“And yet we are still here.” Mycroft smiled. Faint, but it built with each word John spied as he listened. “It adds up over time. But it was a choice we all made.” 

John wanted to get back to the subject. Something felt too personal. 

“Was it, though? I don’t recognise that Molly—“

Mycroft’s snicker paused John’s words. 

“I think perhaps you don’t perceive Miss Hooper at all… or do you not recall she was essential to the strategy that saved his life years ago?”

John remained silent, his eyes staring through the doorway to Sherlock, asleep by his best guess. At least he hoped so because his bastard brother hit the nail on the head.. And he hated it more than he was ready to admit. 

Mycroft continued. “You relegated her to her Godmother status in your despair. But she knew every plan. Has since Sherlock chose her to.”

“She always noticed more… saw more… thanks for reminding me that I’m his best friend and I know nothing.” John shook his head as he put his hand on his hips. It stung. Perhaps more than Mycroft intended, he hoped anyway, otherwise a punch in the nose was overdue. Jealousy is ugly and John never settled well with the prickling on the back of his neck it produced. 

Mycroft said as he joined John staring at Sherlock, “She didn’t deserve that though… she didn’t deserve any of it. Out of any of us…”

John sighed, running his tongue along his teeth under his lip in frustration. “And I or Sherlock did?”

“No… well, perhaps.” Mycroft folded his arms across his chest now, keeping his stare on his brother, “She realised the risks of her… attachments. Years of it.”

John shifted closer to Mycroft, “Are you not also aware? Is it cruel that she had to endure a similar torture as us? 

“Certainly. My sister gets right to the pith, doesn’t she? We all have choices we must reckon with. I’m relieved for my brother that Miss Hooper was not in harm’s way in the end. Do not be mistaken in that.”

“You’re exhausting, you know that?” John shook his head as he folded his arms, clicking his tongue. 

Mycroft only smiled back. “Indubitably. You will not find satisfaction in my logic. I do care. To a fault.”

Both men let the air rest between them, all the words uttered and left to linger in their minds. 

“Mycroft!”

John’s glance found Mr and Mrs Holmes at a steady walk bearing down, and he turned back to see Mycroft’s eyes shut tight.

With a wave and slight smile, John motioned the parents in their direction to begin whatever happened next. He hoped Sherlock was ready for it.

-:-

The two men stood still outside the hospital, morning light casting a pale grey haze. They stayed there for several minutes without a word. John noticed his friend soaking it all back in. Life in London like a cigarette drag. 

A woman walked by giggling with a young girl, wide grins and tight gripped hands. Her daughter? John’s heart leapt. Rosie. His baby daughter is at home waiting for her Daddy. He’s still her father, after all.

Each day crashed into the other and he couldn’t change so many things. But his baby girl, fresh and young, needed him, and the corner of his eyes watered at the thoughts he’d had. That she didn’t need him haunted his mind. 

The cab ride plodding and he shifted in his seat until Sherlock cleared his throat.

“Do you wish to get out and jog the last two miles?” Sherlock offered low with a smirk.

“I… it’s only—”

“Rosie. Mrs Hudson is fine and took over for the sitter. She informed me Rosie’s still sleeping.”

John chuckled from his chest softly, “The one morning she has a lie in.”

They arrived at the flat, both men showing the other slight smiles as they reached the door. John’s mind focused on the tiny details once more when he looked down, holding his key tight between his fingers. Sometimes he came home from a near death experience so wearily numb all the colours faded into nothing.

But today every colour spectrum blinded him. So dazzling he spied every shade of grey in the pavement and the click of the lock he nearly heard each tooth on the key.

Maybe being friends with Sherlock unlocked something else in him after all.

He smelled tea and a vanilla candle burning as he entered behind Sherlock. Mrs Hudson greeted them with a watery grin as she grabbed Sherlock, hugging him unrelenting. John stared as his friend let her hold him tight in silence with eyes shut.

John left them to it as his feet turned to the hall

Soft padded steps contrasted his leaping heart as he pushed open the cracked door to her room. The ocean sound machine lulled him to a deep, quiet breath. A temptation to just pass out on the floor by her crib overwhelmed him, and he peered at the window instead of his daughter. The light filtered down to a filtered glow by the sheer sky blue curtains. Mary loved blue. 

His chest ached, and he turned his eyes to his resting child. Sweet golden curls with chubby hands tucked under her face as he stared intently at her rising and falling rib cage. He should wake her. But he hated to break this peace, to feel her wrath of being disturbed. She was like him in that way.

But he spied an eye flutter and moved to the crib side as she stirred and one eye popped open. 

“Rosie—”

She grunted and sat up suddenly, arms outreached and he obliged, lifting her against his chest as she settled her face into his neck. And he swayed with soft tears, leaving his eyes with a deep ache.

His baby girl. He’d try from now on. Work to be her dad properly without the shadow of her mother casting him into darkness. There’s too much light left here, he mused, and he vowed there to remember this moment. 

He moved back down the hall, greeting a weary Sherlock. John sighed, noting the fallen shoulders most of all. 

John nodded and motioned with his head toward his bedroom. Sherlock stared at Rosie, a timid hand hovering just above her. John looked and offered a reassuring smile as Sherlock gave the lightest of pats on Rosie’s back and walked into the near bedroom without a word.

John shifted a half awake Rosie and laid her on the sofa with care. She grunted again and pointed at the tv.

“What you want, darling?”

“Teebe, peeze,” she motioned with a nod.

John found the remote and children’s programming. She seemed content leaning on a pillow, wholly uninterested in her daddy now. 

He slipped into the kitchen, finding the kettle with a slight smile and nod at Mrs Hudson who sat at the table, holding a mug close to her face as she returned his smile softly. He dropped a tea bag in his own cup and filled it before speaking. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Mrs Hudson.”

“That’s two of us. What a right bloody mess…” she paused as he sat across from her and she leaned in, “A sister?”

“Oh, yeah… helluva one at that,” John snickered as he sipped, forgetting he’d meant to let it steep and he grimaced setting it down. 

“Poor Sherlock,” she sighed, shaking her.” He’s had so much.”

“Yes… though I guess… in some ways, knowing the truth is better than a lie,” John said, tracing the mug handle with his thumb. 

“True… true,” Mrs Hudson nodded, taking a sip of her tea. “I’m so glad everyone is ok… but at what cost?”

“We’ll get on… like we always do.”

“I asked about Molly Hooper… and Sherlock clammed right up. Hardly spoke after it. She is unharmed, isn’t she? Everyone Sherlock cares for seemed affected in some way.”

“I hope so… his sister threatened her, though without her knowledge. Only we knew…” John shrugged, looking for the vagueness required. “Sherlock forced to make sure she said a certain set of words…” his voice trailed as he recalled the events still fresh in his mind, the broken edges of each of their voices magnified.

Mrs Hudson stared ahead, sipping her tea without a sound.

He rubbed his chin in thought. “It’s just… and I’m an idiot probably—”

“Oh for certain, dear.” She set her drink down. 

“Ah… yes... anyway,” he shook off the insult. “I really didn’t see it… perhaps a bit on her side.”

“Pardon?”

“Molly.”

“What about her?”

John squinted. He wasn’t the most astute in the subtle tics and mannerisms of others as his friend. But he’d learned about Mrs Hudson. She understood what he was implying. She just liked to watch him squirm. 

“Sherlock’s sister made him get a confession from Molly.”

Mrs Hudson sat up and narrowed her eyes. “No… no.”

“Molly made him say it first. It was the only way.”

Mrs Hudson offered a tight smile, murmuring “Good girl.”

“He said it twice… and he had to say it like he meant it… and I think he meant it?”

“Because you assumed Sherlock’s unemotional.”

“Hmm?”

“You believe every word he’s ever told you. Well… until you didn’t,” she snickered lightly.

He matched it. “Well, he did say he was a sociopath…”

She huffed. “And you believed that rubbish?”

John tried his tea again. Now too strong, and he winced at the bitter coating on his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

He shrugged. “But even then… Molly—”

“Why not her? Why anyone else?” Mrs Hudson said, her eyes meeting his. “She’s the godmother to your daughter. And who is the godfather?”

John shook his head. But he ran memories across his mind every moment of the two of them together. Secrets there, but he thought it only one of Sherlock’s death and resurrection. He’d missed in their furtive glances the conspiratorial unsaid knowledge between them, neither bringing up the painful subject neither could voice. He heard it in his begging, and Molly’s searing pain laid out bare. Darker than any other test she could have forced him into including the next one they faced. They were all men willing to die for others, anyway. That coffin torn to thorns the only control for his friend and John stared with a beating heart unable to do a damned thing except listen to the blood pump in his ears and the yelling. 

John wanted Eurus dead, following his path of anger, always his next thought. He tempered it, but the ache in his chest remained. His friend’s heart opened bare, unsure if he’d survive. Cruelty. Not discounting everything she’d done to him. 

But they all made it, even Eurus. John didn’t know what he’d say to Sherlock when he woke. Perhaps Mrs Hudson’s insight was worth seeking. As Molly saw through his friend’s bullshit, Mrs Hudson saw his heart.

She sipped her tea, staring down at the table. 

“What do I need to tell him?” John said looking off toward Rosie and watching her half sucking her thumb.

“Let him know it’s ok,” Mrs Hudson sighed.

“Just… it’s ok?” John turned back to Mrs Hudson, who reached her hand out to his. He opened it across and allowed her to grip it tight.

“Yes. That no matter what’s next, it’s ok to move forward. Same goes for you John Watson... It’s alright now.”

Her eyes watered and her voice cracked at the last word and the ache shifted from his chest to throat.

John lifted her hand and kissed it, matching her smile as he rose and joined Rosie on the sofa. He kissed her head of curls as she snuggled into his side. 

-:-

“You want lunch?” John said as he leaned on the door frame, watching Sherlock stretch from his nap. 

“Mrs Hudson?”

John noted the break in Sherlock’s voice. “Left but she made us some sandwiches, Rosie’s already had lunch.”

He shifted and turned back into the hall, Sherlock following quietly behind.

Both men patted Rosie on the head as they passed her entranced by a Disney film and shuffled into the kitchen. 

Sherlock flopped in the same seat Mrs Hudson occupied earlier as John took the sandwich from the icebox.

“Tea?”

Sherlock sighed, “God yes.”

The kettle started and John leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, observing his friend shove a cold ham sandwich in his mouth. The thoughts rolling across Sherlock’s mind showed in his forehead creased, and the vacant gaze.

The beeping broke the quiet and John made both their mugs, setting them down on the table as he sat. _One more heavy conversation_ , he mused.

“Don’t say what you’re thinking,” Sherlock mumbled low before shoving another bite of sandwich in his mouth.

John rolled his eyes. “God dammit Sherlock.”

“I learned too many new things in one night. Lots of cataloguing to do,” Sherlock mumbled through chewing his food while tapping his temple.

With a shrug, John shut his eyes, thinking of what to say. Mrs Hudson told him though. He only needed to believe it enough to speak it. Sherlock required to talk through some of it. John remembered the sound of his yelling in the night, helpless to repair the unrepairable. But he’d try. 

All the same, something angry remained burning under his skin and John tried expressing that first instead.

“So just leave your sister and her actions out of all this for now?” John sighed, stretching his neck to ease the tightening. 

“You appear to believe it essential to our current state to discuss her.”

“Yes… well… and no,” John pursed his lips. “I… can I just talk and you promise not to interject?”

John waited until Sherlock looked at him directly, and he held the stare, seeking understanding.

The small nod gave him the reply. Sometimes silence from Sherlock is a blessing.

“Everything was a test, and torture… all meant to expose you.”

Sherlock closed his eyes. “She knows nothing else. Stunted in that moment of choice she made.”

“But she killed…” John paused, swallowing hard as the words stuck like toffee in his mouth. “She killed people, she started Moriarty down a worse path, she almost made us killed ourselves—” 

“I’ve killed as well,” Sherlock half grinned and snickered but tempered it when John shook his head but he continued. “She is singularly minded and seeks results; the methods only interesting to their means.” Sherlock leaned back with steepled fingers. 

John tapped the table with his fingers slow, ignoring the rising hair on the back of his neck. “You can’t—”

“I can and I will. No one else can but I,” Sherlock said, eyes steady with conviction and John met his glare. “She is my sister. Deserving of every attention ever starved from her. No matter what she...is.”

“But what she did to Molly,”

John observed Sherlock sit up taller and the struggle not to cut off the conversation showed in his brow. John continued.

“That was the worst wasn’t it? But see.. I can’t be certain why… and I’ll ask you but let me get the thought out, ok?”

Sherlock stayed silent and unblinking. 

“What was the cruelty in this case? Was it having a friend forced to confess her love you couldn’t reciprocate?” John licked his lips. “Or was it that you just didn’t want the truth known to others and said out loud?”

“Are you finished?” Sherlock asked low. 

John leaned back and folded his arms. “Yeah… we can have a conversation now”

“Both.” Sherlock answered without hesitation.

John frowned, and he opened his mouth but Sherlock continued.

“Molly and I…” Sherlock paused and John watched him struggle with an obvious lump in his throat.

“We both aware of the truth, but the matter settled.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Was it?” 

“Yes… in a manner of speaking. She was engaged, and I advised she deserved all the happiness such an arrangement brings for someone like her. She… cared for me then still. After all, she knew I was alive the entire time. Lied to Terry—”

“Tom.”

Sherlock frowned. “Hmm? Oh, yes… Tom. She lied to him about it. To everyone…” His voice trailed off.

John shook his head and shrugged. “Why did you bring her into it? Why her?”

“She was the one in the shadow. In the background… and the safest. But most of all she would do it without question.”

“I would’ve—”

Sherlock held up his hand. “I’m quite sure but you were a target already. Your ignorance a requirement of the plan.”

John sought his eyes, looking for a sign of some slip of emotion as he asked, “But was it just that for Molly.? I mean the way you looked at Tom… the way you let her slap you, the way I am damned sure in that ambulance ride she was aware of your plan well before then.”

“You’re correct.”

“So what that all adds up to in my mind… she’s special” John said, a tiny smirk sneaking into the corner of his lips. 

“So?”

“So yeah.”

Sherlock huffed. “Ask what you want to ask,”

“So... is it you can’t reciprocate or is it you choose not to?” John leaned over on his elbows on the table. 

“What choice do I have?”

“You do have it, Sherlock.”  
  


John watched as the thoughts rolled across Sherlock’s face, shifting from surprise to something much sadder.

“It’s no matter my sister closed that door when—”

But John determined he’d push Sherlock out of melancholy. _Not now, not after all that._ “Nope. You don’t get to do this today.”

“Pardon?”

John pointed a finger at Sherlock. “You’re going to Molly’s, and you’re gonna talk. I’ll shove you through the door if I gotta—“

“What are you implying that this will—”

“You suss it out. You’re the smart one, right?” John snickered. 

“So what if I…” Sherlock stopped his words with his mouth agape and he clamped it shut scrunching his eyes tight. “She’s safer without me.”

“Mate ain’t a single one of us safe...” John clicked his tongue. _I know none of us are sane, including her probably if I knew her better._ “I… and maybe Molly was right about this... Tough as it is to say so.”

“I’m the one who likes the thrill of it. I relish running for our lives against the clock… every time.” Sherlock said with a frown.

“I thought I was following you, just tagging along to keep you safe but no… time to be honest with myself. You’d be pretty happy some days to solve all the mysteries from your chair. You do sometimes and I just… I hate it.” John sighed looking down at his own hands. 

A silence settled between the two men.

“I’m sorry I kept saying her name… it was…” John paused, swallowing, “Yeah it was me only saying what I thought you were. What you wanted. Looking for that thrill, right? Irene was that. I didn’t think that perhaps you needed and wanted the other.”

Sherlock looked up but back down and to the side as John finished his thought. 

“In fairness you set it up like at the beginning that you didn’t.”

“In all honesty, it was foreign to myself as a concept. Perhaps it still remains so I...”

“Nope.” John said leaning over the table to catch Sherlock’s eyes.. 

Sherlock squinted, “Hmm?”

John leaned across and tapped him on the forehead. “Don’t be an idiot... well... anymore than you are.”

Sherlock started incredulously. “I’m sorry I don’t—”

“I said it once, and I put the sentiment to the wrong person… but I mean it now. As your friend who… your friend who cares for you and wishes the very best for you,” John paused noting the softening in Sherlock’s face. “She is out there and I don’t know if you can fix it. Not sure things can ever be fixed. But give it a try, dammit. Both of you. Because you want to. You need peace, Sherlock. We all do. Even me. I missed something big all along and God you know Mary would just laugh her head off at us both right now. Ah who knows she might have already fixed it. I’m sure she knew.” 

John ignored the heavy ache that crept in his chest with each word. His ribs tired of the misery that never escaped him too long. 

John said low, “Problem is, Sherlock, I treated you like a fellow soldier in the trenches. And you didn’t need that. I didn’t either.”

Sherlock frowned. “You took care of me… at moments when I couldn’t care for myself, refused to. You’re a doctor for the trenches. I required that many times.”

“We gotta get out of the trenches, Sherlock,” John said earnestly as he held Sherlock’s stare. “Any way we can.”

John sensed Sherlock reading into his stare and dropped his gaze.

“How did you know Mary was… unique? Worth the exertion?” Sherlock murmured.

John chuckled, rubbing his chin and his chest. “Well, I never saw her as an exertion so… but yeah. I wanted her beside me, no matter what. She’d have my back. That I… needed her. That she made me feel more complete,” he sniffed and surprised himself that his eyes throbbed. “Rather stupid really… no one can complete a person, can they?”

“No, but the sentiment is common.”

“It was fun. Whatever kind of row we had it just ended with laughs,” John said and paused, looking back up at Sherlock. “Molly loves you in that way. Unflinching.”

“I’m afraid that’s not enough I am who I—”

“Shut up… you’re who you want to be. You’re not a man bound by expectations, right? So do the unexpected, Sherlock. It’s… like a case right?”

Sherlock’s jaw dropped and his brow knitted tight. “No, it’s not. It’s her emotions, not a mystery. Its delicate work I’m ill equipped uneducated—”

“Then educate yourself.”

Sherlock laughed from his chest. “John—”

“Sherlock, stop.”

“You understand my relationship with failure—“

“Yeah, you do it all the time.” John licked his lip with a smirk. 

Sherlock squared his jaw. “OK... perhaps...”

“It’s on her. Just… try? Trying will be all you can do. If she wants to try… Then you’ll know… I think.” John sighed. 

Sherlock swallowed hard again as he mumbled, “I should go over there. If she’ll let me in the door… I do have a key but that might be rude… should I text? Yes?”

John grinned at his friend’s uncertainty. Honestly, any moment he felt an advantage over Sherlock Holmes was a gift. _Wait did he just say..._

“Wait.. You have a key to her flat?” John frowned.  
  


“Yes, I used it as a bolt hole after all.”

John squinted. “But you never gave it back.”

“No. Why would I? And I used her flat at other moments of need.”

John pulled his top lip down tight to his teeth to stop a giggle. 

Sherlock sighed before he spoke with irritation. “No reason for me to return said key, and she never requested it.”

“Yeah… why would you indeed.” John nodded, closing his eyes and swallowing down the snicker that remained in his throat. 

“Anyway, it’s well established that using said key an impertinent choice of addressing the matter at hand.”

“Text her,” John said as he drew in a long breath through his nose. “Phone calls might be a bit much for a while.”

“Yes…” Sherlock drawled out the word and stared out as if into space and John waved his fingers in front of his face.

“Sherlock… Sherlock… SHERLOCK.”

“What now?” Sherlock’s irritation rumbling in her voice.

“Actually text her not just in your mind palace.”

“I’m attempting to plan the words—”

“Hand me your mobile.”

“No.”

“Hand… me… you—”

“Is the word _no_ not clear enough—”

“Then text her now and show me otherwise I’m gonna—”

“Fine!” Sherlock yelled.

John frowned and pointed at the fitting room where Rosie remained transfixed by the television.

“Fine…” Sherlock grunted low with a frown, flipping out his mobile from his pocket.

He scrolled through and John watched until he couldn‘t stand it anymore.

“Text her.”

Sherlock scrolled on.

“God dammit Sherlock…”

John watched his fingers type with speed and then paused, typed again and the mobile was back in his pocket just as fast.

John stared. “So what did you say?”

Sherlock’s eyebrow rose. “It’s a private matter from this point on.”

“Please tell me it was not anything that makes you an arse—”

“Give me more credit than that.”

“I’d love to… but its… you. “John grinned at Sherlock’s irritated stare. 

“I asked if I could come talk—”

“Exact words, Sherlock.”

“Very well… since no one believes me a capable adult, even my best friend,” Sherlock flipped his phone out and opened the text pushing it into John’s face and then his hand. Sherlock folded his arms in a sulk as he sunk into the chair.

John read the text. **I think we need to talk. I will arrive shortly.**

“Eh… close enough,” John sighed and then smiled as the mobile vibrated. “Looks like she responded.”

John leaned up and spied panic as it crept across Sherlock’s face. “You… you want to see?” John offered it back but Sherlock just stared at the mobile.

“Or I can…?” John leaned down and back at Sherlock.

John sighed and read the text out loud. “Ok. Just use your key.”

Sherlock sat up. “So…”

“Go Sherlock. Just fucking go.”

Sherlock shot up, snatching the mobile in his path to the door with haste. He paused as John rose and caught up, offering a handshake but Sherlock brought him in for a hug. 

“Thank you.”

John patted Sherlock’s shoulder as the hug released just as quick as it began, and with one more grin he opened and shoved Sherlock out the house and shut it in his face. 

With a deep breath, he stepped into the sitting room and flopped next to Rosie. She grinned, and he matched it, leaning down to kiss the top of her head as she snuggled up to his side. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left and its Sherlock. It will be published on January 15 2020, the anniversary of TFP and also one year after i started this. 
> 
> Thanks to Mouse9 for beta. 
> 
> John is tough so be kind, his voice is more a challenge for me.


	5. Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trauma is exhausting. Measuring each step your body took to survive, quantifying the lies, maddening calculations every cell scrounge together to keep him whole.
> 
> He sat stiff still. How he hated waiting for anything and everything required it now. The police lights and ambulance glow sharp against the dark surrounding him. Burning behind his eyes and in front offensive to a sharp pain trailing ahead of a dull ache.
> 
> He needed to tell her… something. The words beyond the obvious explanations of his sister’s murky ruminations in the recesses of his mind. More than a forced confession to prevent death.

Trauma is exhausting. Measuring each step your body took to survive, quantifying the lies, maddening calculations every cell scrounge together to keep him whole.

He sat stiff still. How he hated waiting for anything and everything required it now. The police lights and ambulance glow sharp against the dark surrounding him. Burning behind his eyes and in front offensive to a sharp pain trailing ahead of a dull ache.

He needed to tell her… something. The words beyond the obvious explanations of his sister’s murky ruminations in the recesses of his mind. More than a forced confession to prevent death. 

His concern for his friends is obvious. He wanted their attention and time. Their mutual care. She was a friend, but he ignored some other desire mingled. And perhaps it sat there at the edge of his attention, at the corner of his eye. 

Patient and quiet and intense, always waiting. Molly. Why did he do the things he did for her? To her… and not to her. The requests he asked from her because he desired something even if he lacked specifics, and yet it all seemed unattainable now. The thing he wanted most; to see her smile for him, because of him, not just despite him. Selfish but he needed peace and her smile calm waters, a sign that things are as they should be.

When his eyes lifted, Greg Lestrade jogging into view, crystallised all the fear he’d ignored, and he jumped to his feet and met his run. Every name and face flashed in his mind, working into a lump n his throat.

Lestrade huffed as they reached each other, “Sherlock, are you—”

“Mrs Hudson! Rosie! My brother!... Mycroft?”

Lestrade threw his hands in front of him, “OKOK!”

“Tell me!”

Lestrade yelled back, “They’re OK. He’s OK. As much as any you can fucking be right now.” Lestrade spit at the ground, hands on his hip. 

Sherlock stumbled and stepped back to a seat on the edge of the ambulance, staring at Lestrade. 

“He’ll be here soon. At least that’s what his text said.” Lestrade sighed, bringing his arms across his chest.

He knew he’d survive. It’s what Holmes’ do. Even his sister, for all her mental maladies, survived. Thriving in her own way under the pressure of the past carried too much weight. She pulled them all down with her into the maelstrom. 

But why did Mycroft need to be here? Sherlock’s face scrunched up as he whispered, “How...”

“He always finds a way.”

Sherlock stared out into the dark, seeking any greying at the horizon. The night bore down on his shoulders.

Lestrade coughed as he sat beside Sherlock, picking up something beside him as he elbowed Sherlock, “You need a blanket?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the orange blanket, “You’re saying I’m in shock? I think—”

“You know what, if you don’t want it I’ll take it, you bastard,” Lestrade wrapped it around his shoulders grunting. 

“Um... I’m the one in shock so” Sherlock grabbed the edge of it and tugged but Lestrade held tight. 

The two men stared at the other. 

“Well, it makes two of us,” Lestrade sneered at him. 

A scene worker dropped another blanket off as if prompted, and Sherlock stared at it for a moment and relented his grasp. He and Lestrade stared off into the same distance for a few breaths hung heavy in the night air. 

Sherlock spoke first and softly. “My friends were gone. Again. All of you… unsure of what… if anything, she was doing affected anyone.... until Molly answered my call.”

Lestrade sighed out a hard breath before asking in a similar muted tone, “It might be awfully personal but—”

“Yes, it is… don’t ask.”

Lestrade crossed his arms, and Sherlock eyed him with caution. 

“Someone’s gonna tell me in the end. I’ll look at the report. What was the phone call about? “

“She said she’d die.” Sherlock’s eyes squeezed shut, every smell and sound of the room threatening to fill his mind to a panic.

Lestrade’s voice sounded far away, as if he were falling down the well. “Sherlock what—”

Sherlock kept his eyes closed, curling into fists laid on his legs. The pain focused his mind, grounding back into reality. The sounds loud and crisp as his lungs emptied in his tight chest. 

“It was a lie though… she never was in that sort of danger” Sherlock said, the anxiety crawling up the back of his neck again. “ Wait — “ He shot up from his seat, wide eyed at Lestrade. “You said she was safe, right? Is she safe?”

Lestrade frowned with squinted eyes. “Hmm?”

Sherlock shouted in Lestrade’s face, “Molly!”

Lestrade’s hands shot up and pushed him back. “She’s fine, I’m sure. I’m waiting for a text from Sally. Calm down!”

As if on cue, Lestrade’s mobile buzzed in his pocket and he raised a finger at Sherlock as he pulled it, turning and stepping away, leaving Sherlock.

Lestrade glanced away from Sherlock and into the dark as he paced. 

Mingled noises of voices and wind and a buzzing in Sherlock's ears he couldn’t shake. 

John stared at him. He sensed the concern boring through his back.

“I don’t know, John… are we out of that well yet?” The words slipped out of his mouth from his thoughts, shivering as the pain in his knuckles remained.

John sighed. “We made it… we’re here and we can... unravel it all—”

“Everything changes.” Sherlock said faintly, continuing to stare at Lestrade in the distance. 

Sherlock glanced at John, noting the weariness. Easier to focus on than his own. 

John’s shoulder lifted slightly, a stifled shrug that slumped instead. “Um.. yeah,, I mean… fuck. Your sister tried to kill us, so… there’s that. That’s... a lot to think about I’m sure.”

“I’m… yes, of course,” Sherlock stood and began a tight pace as a helicopter landed in a short distance.

“Mycroft made it,” John said with a half cocked grin and looked back and forth between Sherlock and Mycroft in the distance. 

Sherlock’s eyes followed his brother’s path and narrowed as Mycroft paused at Lestrade’s side 

John huffed, “Sherlock, we all made it, even Molly is okay.”

Lestrade in the distance distressed, Sherlock observed his posture change as he talked on his mobile with someone. _Sally? No..._

“Is she?” Sherlock half whispered, and he noted John moved closer to him 

“Well…,” John shrugged as he stepped more in front of him, unconfidently Sherlock thought. “She’s alive and I’m sure Greg’s talking to her right now… perhaps?”

His mistake. The compulsion trigger fired and Sherlock ran without warning, pushing John out of his way, focusing on Lestrade. The thought of any chance to rectify one moment of pain tonight flashed like lightning across his mind. 

Too soon a snatch at both his sides is almost too light and Sherlock nearly breaking the officers’ hold, but they bore down, bringing him nearly to his knees. Pain seared through his arms and he grunted to keep from screaming. 

John’s voice rang out behind him. “Sherlock! Stop fighting!”

“I… I’m” Words eluded him with pain spread across his chest as he strained. The mobile gone from Lestrade’s hand and Sherlock glanced to see in the distance Mycroft holding it to his ear. Sherlock closed his eyes tight.

“Stuck here for now,” Lestrade said, breathless from his own sprint. “ I don’t know what all happened but ain’t no good coming from you running to her.”

The officers released him, Lestrade’s hand replacing their weight now pressing down on his shoulders. He sighed, “I’m sorry Sherlock… but we all made it. We’ll get it sorted.”

Sherlock sensed the hard pat on his shoulders clapping like a door closing. 

Lestrade stepped away, but Sherlock needed more. The familiar ache under his ribs creeped in after his lungs settled from the run. 

“How did she sound?” He noted the crack in his voice to himself, parched throat eking out the question he feared the answer to, and he searched the ground instead of Lestrade’s face. 

Lestrade huffed. “Mad.”

Sherlock’s eyes shot back up. “Angry or…”

“Not sure you need to focus on this,” John offered, but Sherlock put his hand up. 

“Greg,” Sherlock said with strength, but the “please” caught in his throat, lost to the wind as it picked up around his head.

Lestrade’s brow knitted as he rubbed the back of his skull. “A bit of both,” and his brow furrowed. “Just let her be... I mean it.”

_Logical, but wrong._ Sherlock frowned, shaking his head. “But I can’t… I shouldn’t... I—”

A hand on his shoulder, John’s, gentler and more unsure than previously. “Sherlock… listen to Greg for tonight, OK?” 

The ache remained. Perhaps it was a latent injury or a permanent state now evident regarding Molly. He found no distinct answer for it. Nothing he said to his friends, or to her would relieve the pressure he feared. Nothing could convince either.

He spoke low with closed eyes. His legs dropped him to kneel. “Fine.”

Lestrade’s face fell, but he stepped away soon as Mycroft stepped forward. 

John sighed as he patted Mycroft’s arm. “It’s been an… exciting night, but I think—”

“We will go to a private hospital in a moment. Car’s pulling around. We’ll debrief there and sit for observation,” Mycroft said with a steady tone, unemotional on the surface. Sherlock noted the tremor at the corner of his mouth. 

John frowned. “For—”

“Concussions, other medical care” Mycroft’s eyes lifted from staring at John’s hand and to his brother, eyes unblinking. 

“Sir…”

Their ride is here, Sherlock thought, how convenient. 

Mycroft licked his lips and John’s brow furrowed as the tone shifted to false cheer. “Our parents will be at the hospital, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stayed on his knees, shutting his eyes and soaking in the surrounding air. He only wanted to see one person, but he got everyone else in the world instead. 

John removed his hand from Mycroft, leaning down as he placed it on Sherlock’s shoulder, speaking close to her ear. “We need to go to hospital. Sherlock. Next step... that’s it.” 

His voice sounded far away. An echo of him urging him on to the next room only hours ago but John, always the soldier, whether or not he wanted that. 

“I can’t… She… I” Sherlock’s voice shuddered as a buzzing in his head increased. 

“Sherlock… we made it. We all made it,” John murmured near him.

Mycroft huffed. “Enough of these dramatics. Get in the car. “

Sherlock’s eyes opened wide, locked on his brother. Sherlock stood, releasing John’s hand from his shoulder with a shrug as he stepped to meet his brother eye-to-eye.

“How many times?” Sherlock said low and fast.

“You want answers.” Mycroft’s smile slipped up. Sherlock sensed the false bravado. 

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “You understand—”

“It wasn’t a question. Get in the car.” Mycroft pointed at the vehicle.

Sherlock shouldered his brother hard as he stepped to the car, slid in and wrapped his coat around him, leaning hard into the window. 

_Once more to a hospital to sit and wait, and be forced to think_ , he said to himself a useless silent prayer that they’d give him pain meds when he got there. 

-:-

“Paracetamol… surely you jest.”

John ran his hands over his head and then his face. “Sherlock, you know why—”

“I’m in genuine pain.” Sherlock held his bandaged hand up, looking back and forth between the nurse and Mycroft.

The nurse, an older woman with a thick Glaswegian accent, sighed through her nose, setting the pills down on the table with a thud. “It’s all you get, ya can yell all ya like,” she said as she exited the room. 

“No luck there, brother.”

“Oh Go to hell,” Sherlock grunted as flipped to the side as best he could with all the chest nodes attached, staring out the window. Or rather in as well, because of the reflection of the dark night outside it. 

Silence. He focused on the ache over his body, then pushed it away. Punctuated by beeps, random across the hallways and down. If he focused, he heard them all across the building resonating through walls and through beams, a cacophony of despair, hope and malaise. This discordant symphony seeped into his mind, lulling Sherlock into near slumber to those outside his mind. Eyes closed, he reached out to seek answers. 

Her room in his mind was bitterly absent of her. Behind him he heard the steps of a doctor checking vitals and walking away without a word. He appreciated the lack of care for once. 

Back to her room he’d made her. Her flat and her kitchen building slow and then crystal clear. That striped jumper, a loud piece from Topshop, high street fashion she’d worn well out of its fashionable period. Why did his chest hurt as he mapped its colours? Two memories now visually reminded by its woven shades like watercolours laying out the truth with bleeding edges. He loved her… whatever that meant.

Across his fractured thoughts, he heard John and his brother’s voices. An argument? No, John always sounded like that. His brother is always the epitome of calm. Except that tremble in his lips earlier. 

Sherlock strained to focus, and as they got closer to the door, he heard their words clearer. 

“You fail to comprehend the measured steps required... I believe. Gram by gram, you let it trickle in and out. Sherlock shoved too many needles to find his measure, pushing to extremes.” Mycroft said matter of factually. 

John said with a huff, “You know, I start to feel pity for you and you start that—”

“I’m not asking for sympathy or any assuage of my guilt. It is mine and mine alone to bear. I’ve kept my brother alive by threads before. Perhaps once this passes, his mind can be free.” 

Sherlock sensed the undertone of this speech, cracked underneath in the tone, and he would have studied its meaning if not for the name mentioned next.

“What about Molly?” John said, and Sherlock stiffened at her name, listening all the more intently.

“What about Miss Hooper? She is safe.” 

“Safe… it’s not the word for this. We were both there. We heard and saw something that shouldn’t have happened. Or at least neither of us should have been there for it.”

Sherlock let the recollection of that moment wash over him. He couldn’t decide if he was happier to have John and Mycroft there or not. 

Mycroft drew a breath through his nose. “How many times have you feared for your life?”

“What?”

Sherlock swallowed down a snicker at John, not keeping up with the pace and meaning of this conversation. 

“It’s a simple question, John.”

“I… I don’t feel like counting them to be honest.” 

“And yet we are still here.” Sherlock heard the smile in Mycroft’s voice. “It adds up over time. But it was a choice we all made.” 

John snickered. “Was it, though? I don’t know that Molly—“

Mycroft’s returned it. “I think perhaps you don’t know Miss Hooper at all… or do you not recall she was essential to the strategy that saved his life years ago?”

Sherlock knew John didn’t know her. Perhaps he didn’t either, but… he knew much more than anyone else. John pushed her to the sideline, out of jealousy perhaps. Sherlock didn’t have the energy to devote to that now. 

Mycroft continued. “You relegated her to her Godmother status in your despair. But she knew every plan. Has since Sherlock chose her to.”

“She always noticed more… saw more… thanks for reminding me that I’m his best friend and I know nothing.” John said with a bite.

There it was. Sherlock wished he could tell him it was different. How so divergent, but he couldn’t place the specifics. He only knew questions, not answers.

“She didn’t deserve that though… she didn’t deserve any of it. Out of any of us…”

Sherlock’s heart leapt. Mycroft had said it to him as much to John. _He knows I’m not asleep._

John sighed. "And I or Sherlock did?”

“No… well, perhaps.” Mycroft said. “She knew the risks of her… attachments. Years of it.”

The words washed over Sherlock. Years to only get what? Pain, heartache, two kisses on her cheek and a forced phone call. He wished she’d never helped him. He knew then every time he flattered it only egged her on. Or did it? She’s smarter than that, and she liked the terrible game it was. Surely attraction cannot withstand that. 

“Are you not also aware? Is it cruel that she had to endure a similar torture as us? Certainly. My sister gets right to the pith, doesn’t she? We all have choices we must reckon with. I’m relieved for my brother that Miss Hooper was not in harm’s way in the end. Do not be mistaken in that.”

The weight on his chest unbearable and Sherlock shifted to ease it to no avail. 

“You’re exhausting, you know that?” John said, clicking his tongue. 

Sherlock heard the grin in Mycroft’s tone.“Indubitably. You will not find satisfaction in my logic. I do care. To a fault.”

“Mycroft!”

And all his supposed rest was over as the yelling from his mother grew closer and he knew she’d be at his side in frantic worry. He stared out the window in time to catch his brother’s eyes in the reflection, a knowing looking passing between briefly before the appearance of chaos they’d both sort through the next few hours. 

-:-

The sun seemed cruelly bright, even muted through grey clouds the next day. The lack of sleep like a hangover settled behind his eyes. Sherlock lifted his mobile and nearly asked Lestrade for a case. Any case would do today. A 1 or a 2 on his scale, perhaps. But he stared out instead, soaking in the surrounding colours, adjusting his vision. How droll the ease of the morning like any other. The world travelled on its path as if everything had not shifted under his feet. Poles of his earth reversed and yet he stood on two feet, hailing a cab with John. 

Quiet contemplation washed over Sherlock, familiar streets rolling by, but he noted his friend’s unease, the seat squeaking under his movements. 

“Do you wish to get out and jog the last two miles?” Sherlock offered low with a smirk.

“I… it’s only—”

“Rosie. Mrs Hudson is fine and took over for the sitter. She informed me Rosie’s still sleeping.” Sherlock stared down at his mobile at a text conversation earlier. John hadn’t thought to ask, buried in his own monumental shifts. 

John chuckled low. “The one morning she has a lie in.”

The Watson flat door arrived in front of them and Sherlock’s shoulder bent at the weight of unrest as John unlocked the door on the too quiet street. He entered before John, met by Mrs Hudson snatching him n for a tight hug. 

His eyes tight shut to keep them from watering. Safe. For how long he pondered, when would the next moment fall upon them. He regretted ever letting those he cared about in his life to risk everything all the time. For what gain? No, he’s always in debt.

“I’m OK, Sherlock. You can let me go now, dear, I’d like to breathe now,” Mrs Hudson mumbled into his chest. He realised too late how tight he’d pulled her to him. 

Sherlock released her quickly, letting his arms fall to his side. “I… I’m sorry I—”

“Hush...tea?” she patted his hand as she took it, disarming his concern.

He followed her to the small table in the kitchen, accepting the warm mug with two hands, unsure of the steadiness of his grip. He assumed correctly, watching the tremor set across the steaming liquid. 

“You look awful, dear,” Mrs Hudson sighed in her mug. 

“Thank you, as do you. As if someone bombed your home, perhaps?” Sherlock said with a raised eyebrow before taking a sip. 

“Again?” she tutted. “It must be one of my tenants. Right awful mess he leaves every time."

Sherlock and Mrs Hudson caught each other’s stare over their cup as he replied, “Terrible. You should evict him.”

She grinned, "Well, he pays the rent on time. Keeps it interesting, eh?"

Sherlock smirked, drinking deeply from his tea. Warmth spread across his chest for the first time in hours, maybe nearly a whole day. The mind likes to catalogue trauma away as quickly as possible. Store it safely away to reduce the damage. In this kitchen, insulted by care and comfort, the events of the day before viscerally real and yet dream like.As if he’d shot up one gram more than usual. The doctors at the hospital noted damage done to his body already and for him to rest. For once, he liked that advice.

“How’s Molly? I forgot to ask Greg, he did mention your sister but… well it’s all quite a lot.” she said as she set her cup down.

Everything fresh once again, the image of Molly with her tea, and not knowing if she’d pick up. Pain crept in his chest as it tightened and he swallowed hard, avoiding Mrs Hudson’s concerned stare. The words were sacred in his mind and he couldn’t speak yet until they manifested into a more concrete than a vague concept. 

“I’ll ask John… and...you can talk about your sister at another time, you’re cream crackered. You need to go have a lie down,” Mrs Hudson said with authority, but gently.

He stood, his cup emptied as he rinsed it in the sink, the sleepiness washed over him as he gripped the counter. 

“The world can wait for a couple hours, ” he mumbled.

He leaned over, kissing her on the top of her head, and shuffled to the Watson bedroom, tiptoeing past Rosie’s door. He slipped off his shoes, laying down on the cool duvet, coat and all. His eyes fluttered closed, contemplating the tone of Molly when said “It’s always been true” playing like a whisper in his ears as he slept, eventually dreamless and heavy.

-:-

“You want lunch?” John said as he leaned on the door frame.

Sherlock stretched, feeling weighted still but evenly so. His head and eyelids are no longer heavy. 

“Mrs Hudson?”

“Left but she made us some sandwiches, Rosie’s already had lunch.”

John shifted and turned back into the hall, Sherlock rose, following quietly behind.

Cartoon noises low in the sitting room. For a moment Sherlock nearly sat beside her, ready to take part in whatever inane story line presented. He might even stay silent, letting something uncomplex for once soak in, his goddaughter’s giggle punctuating the moments more comedic. 

But he paused only to mirror John in patting her head, which she ignored, more irritated as they blocked the screen. 

Sherlock flopped in the same seat Mrs Hudson occupied earlier as John took the sandwich from the icebox.

“Tea?”

Sherlock sighed, “God yes” as he snagged a sandwich from the plate. His stomach lurched in protest for a moment, but welcomed nourishment with open abandon the next. 

John stared at him from the counter, words so loud in his head Sherlock sussed them out. But he needed tea. More time alone. Rest, food and soon more caffeine meant his mind palace more accessible, less jumbled. 

The beeping broke the quiet and John made both their mugs, setting them down on the table noisily. 

“Don’t say what you’re thinking,” Sherlock mumbled low before shoving another bite of sandwich in his mouth.

John rolled his eyes at him. “God dammit Sherlock.”

“I learned too many new things in one night. Lots of cataloguing to do,” Sherlock mumbled through chewing his food while tapping his temple.

Sherlock sensed an anger and confusion burned across the table from him. 

“So just leave your sister and her actions out of all this for now?” John sighed, stretching his neck to ease the tightening. 

“You appear to believe it essential to our current state to discuss her.” Sherlock drew a deep, silent breath through his nose. 

“Yes… well… and no,” John said in a tight, unsure voice. “I… can I just talk and you promise not to interject?”

Sherlock looked at him directly, and John held the stare. Intent and knowing he’d receive no peace, Sherlock nodded for him to proceed. 

“Everything was a test, and torture… all meant to expose you.”

Sherlock closed his eyes, pushing images from his mind. Logic needed in this conversation and too many emotions swirled. “She knows nothing else. Stunted in that moment of choice she made.”

“But she killed…” John paused, swallowing hard. Sherlock spied his brow furrow in his search for the words. “She killed people, she started Moriarty down a worse path, she almost made us killed ourselves—” 

“I’ve killed as well,” Sherlock risked a half grin as he snickered but tempered it when John shook his head at him. _Perhaps jest isn’t appreciated yet,_ he mused and continued. “She is singularly minded and seeks results; the methods only interesting to their means.” 

Sherlock leaned back with steepled fingers as John tapped his fingers nervously on the table. A slow pace showed anger, Sherlock thought.

“You can’t—”

“I can and I will. No one else can but I,” Sherlock said, eyes steady with conviction, and John met his glare. “She is my sister. Deserving of every attention ever starved from her. No matter what she...is.”

He didn’t know what she was anymore than his sister. Plagued with similar, if not superior intelligence than him and his brother. It nearly drove him mad at times. How could he judge her?

“But what she did to Molly...”

Sherlock’s spine lit up. Every muscle firing and Sherlock wanted no more of this conversation. He’d been told to leave her alone… though, perhaps that moment was over. But he wanted to speak to her, not anyone else but her. The mention of the risk to Molly’s life dispossessed him of calm. 

Before he could answer, John pushed forward. 

“That was the worst, wasn’t it? But see.. I can’t be certain why… and I’ll ask you but let me get the thought out, ok?”

Words sat on the end of his tongue, caught between his teeth. He needed to let John speak his mind and make his intent known.

“What was the cruelty in this case? Was it having a friend forced to confess her love you couldn’t reciprocate?” John licked his lips. “Or was it that you just didn’t want the truth known to others and said out loud?”

“Are you finished?” Sherlock asked low. Anger and confusion and a deep desire to run ran through his veins, coursing through competing thoughts. _Do I censure him and cut it off? Or is the moment to be honest with him and myself?_ That’s complicated. But some of it remained simple, he reminded himself. 

John leaned back and folded his arms. “Yeah… we can have a conversation now”

“Both.” Sherlock answered without hesitation. Truth is simple. 

John frowned, and he poised to speak.Sherlock continued anyway. .

“Molly and I…” Sherlock paused, accessing the lump that crept into his throat and noting his friend’s concerned look. 

“We were both aware of the truth, but the matter was settled.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Was it?” 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Yes… in a manner of speaking. She was engaged, and I advised she deserved all the happiness such an arrangement brings for someone like her. She… cared for me then still. After all, she knew I was alive the entire time. Lied to Terry—”

“Tom.”

Sherlock frowned. “Hmm? Oh, yes… Tom. She lied to him about it. To everyone…” His voice trailed off. Everyone in his life is affected but her’s so subtle until now. He’d kept her shielded and safe. Every effort all for naught in his sister’s scope.She saw to the core of his life, every inch exposed. 

John shook his head and shrugged. “Why did you bring her into it? Why her?”

John was right to ask it, Sherlock mused. He breathed deep. _John_ _still feels jealous_ , he thought. No matter, Sherlock stood by his reasons to this day.

“She was the one in the shadow. In the background… and the safest. But most of all, she would do it without question.”

“I would’ve—”

Sherlock held up his hand. “I’m quite sure, but you were a target already. Your ignorance is a requirement of the plan.”

John searched his face. Sherlock sensed he looked for a crack in the logic to show. John continued his thought. “But was it just that for Molly? I mean the way you looked at Tom… the way you let her slap you, the way I am damned sure in that ambulance ride she was aware of your plan well before then.”

“You’re correct.” Sherlock said it plainly. Molly knew every plan, every failure, every success since then. When he called her his friend, it held the same weight as when he said it to John. 

“So what that all adds up to in my mind… she’s special” John said, a tiny smirk sneaking into the corner of his lips. 

“So?”

“So yeah.”

John’s smirk irritated him now. Sherlock huffed. “Ask what you want to ask,”

“So... is it you can’t reciprocate or is it you choose not to?” John leaned over on his elbows on the table. 

The hated question. The one he possessed no good excuse for and the rationale he’d relied on all along all he had left. “What choice do I have?”

“You do have it, Sherlock.”

  
  


John said it softly and yet so loud it rang in Sherlock’s ears. All his understanding passed across memory to the present circumstances. He once had a choice, and he made it. 

“It’s no matter my sister closed that door when—”

“Nope. You don’t get to do this today.” John said forcefully. 

Sherlock frowned. “Pardon?”

John pointed a finger at Sherlock. “You’re going to Molly’s, and you’re gonna talk. I’ll shove you through the door if I gotta—“

“What are you implying that this will—” Sherlock sat up tall, feeling irritation replacing his melancholy. 

“You suss it out. You’re the smart one, right?” John snickered. 

“So what if I…” Sherlock stopped his words, shutting his eyes tight. _The answer is what it is,_ _John_ _._ “She’s safer without me.”

“Mate ain’t a single one of us safe...” John clicked his tongue. “I know none of us are sane, including her probably if I knew her better. I… and maybe Molly was right about this... Tough as it is to say so.”

“I’m the one who likes the thrill. I relish running for our lives against the clock… every time.” Sherlock said with a frown. His friends were the temperance; he was the insane one. _Well, perhaps_ _John_ _possessed some qualities, but the rest of them were… normal,_ Sherlock mused. 

John softened his tone. “I thought I was following you, just tagging along to keep you safe but no… time to be honest with myself. You’d be pretty happy some days to solve all the mysteries from your chair. You do sometimes and I just… I hate it.” John sighed looking down at his own hands. 

A silence settled between the two men. One fed the other, Sherlock thought, for better or worse. 

“I’m sorry I kept saying her name… it was…” John paused, swallowing, “Yeah, it was me only saying what I thought you were. What you wanted. Looking for that thrill, right? Irene was that. I didn’t think that perhaps you needed and wanted the other.”

Irene. He allowed John to focus on her to keep his eyes away from Molly’s importance. The perfect diversion away from the actual cause of emotions. Sherlock looked up but back down and to the side as John finished his thought, feeling caught now, even though he still sensed John missed it. It wasn’t his mistake. Sherlock calculated his assumptions to protect Molly. 

John sighed. “In fairness you set it up like at the beginning that you didn’t.”

Sherlock leaned back slightly, half looking at John. “In all honesty, it was foreign to myself as a concept. Perhaps it still remains so I...”

“Nope.” John said leaning over the table.

Sherlock squinted, “Hmm?”

John leaned across more and tapped him on the forehead. “Don’t be an idiot... well... anymore than you are.”

_The absolute nerve,_ Sherlock thought. Sherlock started incredulously. “I’m sorry I don’t—”

“I said it once, and I put the sentiment to the wrong person… but I mean it now. As your friend who… your friend who cares for you and wishes the very best for you,” John paused, staring at Sherlock. “She is out there and I don’t know if you can fix it. Not sure things can ever be fixed. But give it a try, dammit. Both of you. Because you want to. You need peace, Sherlock. We all do. Even me. I missed something big all along and God you know Mary would just laugh her head off at us both right now. Ah, who knows she might have already fixed it. I’m sure she knew.” 

The mention of Mary dug in Sherlock’s chest, already heavy with guilt. But he focused on the words John said. Peace was the word that stuck in his forethought as John continued. 

John said low, “Problem is, Sherlock, I treated you like a fellow soldier in the trenches. And you didn’t need that. I didn’t either.”

_But that’s what I found most fascinating about you. What I needed at the time. It saved my life so_ _many times_ _._ Sherlock frowned. “You took care of me… at moments when I couldn’t care for myself, refused to. You’re a doctor for the trenches. I required that many times.”

“We gotta get out of the trenches, Sherlock,” John said earnestly as he held Sherlock’s stare. “Any way we can.”

Sherlock let the words wash over him, John’s eyes earnest, but even Sherlock saw the fissures underneath at the mention of Mary. He needed to know what made the tipping point for Mary to try for this, but she wasn’t here to answer. Her absence sat like a frigid chill in his veins. He missed her compassion and innate understanding. But perhaps John could tell her answer in reverse. 

“How did you know Mary was… unique? Worth the exertion?” Sherlock murmured.

John chuckled, rubbing his chin and his chest. “Well, I never saw her as an exertion so… but yeah. I wanted her beside me, no matter what. She’d have my back. That I… needed her. That she made me feel more complete,” he sniffed and surprised himself that his eyes throbbed. “Rather stupid really… no one can complete a person, can they?”

Sherlock nodded. “No, but the sentiment is common.”

“It was fun. Whatever kind of row we had it just ended with laughs,” John said and paused, looking back up at Sherlock. “Molly loves you in that way. Unflinching.”

Molly’s uniqueness unquestioned, Sherlock thought. She has to be or what good would have all these years of him avoiding the rare attraction, ignoring how long they stared and how she did what he asked, not unflinching as he said but with trepidation and concern and a steel spine. She deserved happiness. She deserved peace. 

“I’m afraid that’s not enough I am who I—”

“Shut up… you’re who you want to be. You’re not a man bound by expectations, right? So do the unexpected, Sherlock. It’s… like a case right?”

Sherlock’s jaw dropped and his brow knitted tight. “No, it’s not. It’s her emotions, not a mystery. Its delicate work I’m ill equipped uneducated—”

“Then educate yourself.”

This was too much. Sherlock laughed from his chest. “John—”

“Sherlock, stop.”

“You understand my relationship with failure—“

“Yeah, you do it all the time.” John licked his lip with a smirk. 

Sherlock squared his jaw at the insult. “OK... perhaps...”

“It’s on her. Just… try? Trying will be all you can do. If she wants to try… Then you’ll know… I think.” John sighed. 

The conversation remained at a standstill. Molly would see his logic. She would reject the notion in the end. She might even be angry enough now to rid herself of him. But why did that sit like a stone in his throat?

Sherlock swallowed hard again as he mumbled out, “I should go over there. If she’ll let me in the door… I do have a key but that might be rude… should I text? Yes?”

John grinned at first, but it fell. “Wait.. You have a key to her flat?” 

  
  


Sherlock sniffed, “Yes, I used it as a bolt hole after all.”

John squinted. “But you never gave it back.”

Sherlock searched the meaning of his concern, but he needed more questioning.

“No. Why would I? And I used her flat at other moments of need.”

John pulled his top lip down tight to his teeth to stop a giggle. 

_What is he on about?_ Sherlock sighed before he spoke with irritation. “No reason for me to return said key, and she never requested it.”

“Yeah… why would you indeed.” John nodded, closing his eyes, obviously still holding back his laughter. 

_This path of conversation is meaningless, I do not understand what is so humorous. Moving on_ “Anyway, it’s well established that using said key an impertinent choice of addressing the matter at hand.”

“Text her,” John said as he drew in a long breath through his nose. “Phone calls might be a bit much for a while.”

The first sensible thing John had said in a while. Even to Sherlock, the thought of a phone call overwhelming. Could he withstand to hear that tiny but strong voice breaking down once more? No. But would it be worse in person? 

“Yes…” Sherlock drawled out the word and stared out as if into space, and John waved his fingers in front of his face.

“Sherlock… Sherlock… SHERLOCK.”

He’d tried to go inside his head, find his Molly there and run through some scenarios quickly but John’s voice echoed loudly, drawing him back out. 

“What now?” Sherlock’s irritation rumbling in his voice.

“Actually text her not just in your mind palace.”

“I’m attempting to plan the words—”

“Hand me your mobile.”

“No.”

“Hand… me… you—”

Sherlock gritted his teeth. “Is the word _no_ not clear enough—”

“Then text her now and show me otherwise I’m gonna—”

“Fine!” Sherlock burst out. 

John frowned and pointed at the sitting room where Rosie remained transfixed by the television. Sherlock wished for a moment he’d stay with his original inclination to watch the Disney movie instead as John’s stare unrelenting. 

“Fine…” Sherlock grunted low with a frown, flipping out his mobile from his pocket. He scrolled through some notifications, texts from his brother and Lestrade.

“Text her.”

Sherlock scrolled on, deciding if any texts needed his attention more, all while thinking of the words to type. 

“God dammit Sherlock…”

  
  


He glanced at John and clicked on her name, texting quick before he could overthink, **_I think we need to talk… I will arrive shortly._ **

Once done, he dropped his mobile in his pocket. He waited to feel a buzz as John continued to stare. 

“So what did you say?”

Sherlock’s eyebrow rose. “It’s a private matter from this point on.”

“Please tell me it was not anything that makes you an arse—”

“Give me more credit than that.”

“I’d love to… but it’s… you. “John grinned at Sherlock’s irritated stare. 

“I asked if I could come talk—”

“Exact words, Sherlock.”

“Very well… since no one believes me a capable adult, even my best friend,” Sherlock flipped his phone out and opened the text pushing it into John’s face and then his hand. Sherlock folded his arms in a sulk as he sunk into the chair.

“Eh… close enough,” John sighed and then smiled as the mobile vibrated. “Looks like she responded.”

So quick. As if she waited… but no. Why did that thought cross his mind? Why did an image of her fill behind his eyes, the same jumper and sitting on her sofa as if she’d paused everything after he called yesterday? He noticed John sensing his panic and stared down. 

“You… you want to see?” John offered it back, but Sherlock only glanced at the mobile.

“Or I can…?” John looked down and up and back at Sherlock. 

  
  


He needed to read it. It was private. But the courage flew, and he sat small in this chair. Her word like a sword poised. 

John sighed and read the text out loud. “Ok. Just use your key.”

Sherlock sat up. “So…”

“Go, Sherlock. Just fucking go.”

Sherlock shot up, snatching the mobile in his path to the door with haste. He paused as John rose and caught up, offering a handshake but Sherlock brought him in for a hug. He hugged today. Maybe from now on. Why not?

“Thank you.”

John patted Sherlock’s shoulder as the hug released just as quick as it began, and with one more grin he opened and shoved him out the house and shut it in his face. 

Sherlock stared at it, fighting the compulsion to run back inside, feign a case was on. A lie to help them both, maybe? 

But he said he would talk to her. And that’s what he needed to do. He only hoped the cab ride over enough to sort out the words.

  
  


-:-

Her door. Same as always, and he resisted knocking. The key slipped in, worn now enough to find the pins with ease. 

When he entered, he stepped silently, and his breath caught at her standing in her kitchen. The placement of her the same, even if her attire differed. He appreciated that otherwise the trigger might have sent him out the door. A different jumper. Darker and solid burnt orange, akin to a fisherman’s weave and hanging loose on her frame. He noted the cardigan of green on the sofa. She’d worn it to see his brother, he deduced. Naturally, there was a debrief today. She’d dressed professionally for the meeting. Power dynamics needed regarding his brother not lost on him. He’d given anything to hear what they said. The information eye opening to how to proceed. Perhaps he could ask about that? It’s an icebreaker of sorts.

“You text me, Sherlock.”

Her voice rang out across the room, snapping him out of his musings. He caught her glance, but she looked away, down at her tea.

“I… yes, I believe...or assume that—”

“Say what you need to say and leave, I’m…” she said with a short tone, but it faded at the end as she sighed. “I’m tired.”

He moved toward the kitchen and paused as he looked up. His hands behind his back, cold against each other, as if the flush in his chest well hidden pulled life from them. Words hung like smoke, but neither seemed able to move the air in their lungs forward. 

Her attitude emanated across the divide between them. A multitude. He read its substrate. She wanted to hit him, kick him out of her home, and rightly so, he thought. But he sensed the catalyst remained, unchanged as always. She loved him as she said she had. Her eyes, weary but resigned, said so. 

The only problem now that his mind couldn’t focus on his own emotions. Too long he’d confused and hidden them away with logical fallacies. But maybe his old standby regarding her would suffice. 

“I want to apologise, if you’ll allow me,” he said at last, spying her shoulders drop.

“For what?”

“For… well, I can start with my sister, but perhaps that’s not in my power.”

“Your brother he… well not really I guess, apologising not his expertise either.”

He noted the tone melting the more they spoke into conversational voices. He craved it like a cigarette.

“It’s not something he’s good at. Maybe he’ll come around to it.”

“But you developed the skill.”

Undecided if a hint of sarcasm sat in her words, he pressed on. “Unfortunately, you’re often the object of the need to arising.” 

“You’re talking around the subject. Please speak your mind and leave.”

“Yes, I don’t deny it… can we sit, I’m not leaving and standing is…”

Her head cocked ever so slightly at his saying he was not leaving. As if indignation and curiosity mingled. His stringing her along with tiny shifts she could extrapolate and misplace hope in such a common practice. But a more concrete action to aid her eluded him still. 

She sighed out, a beautiful surrender to his ears. “Just sit, Sherlock. You want tea. “

He shook his head as he considered her armchair but chose the sofa. She deserved the option of the higher ground it offered. Her armchair across from him, she sat curling her legs under her. He recalled evenings of her watching him like this, fighting every urge to use as he rambled on about whatever she let him. Her tolerance is a gift. If he were high, perhaps the words sweet honeyed poetry would drip from his lips before he took hers. He'd sweep her in his arms, lost in fervour she desired so long absent from his sober mind. But sober is all he could be now. 

“I assume this conversation is awkward even if one is familiar with such… conversations. Not that the phone call was less awkward, quite the opposite. But perhaps… no way around it now.”

He squinted, every word spoken feeling more stupid.

But her breath caught his attention, ragged as if the dam cracked,

“We don’t have to have it. You can apologise and it’s over.”

“Is that what you want?” 

“What does it matter what I want… I want lots of things and never will have them.” Her face screwed up as if her own honesty caught up with her. He appreciated that thought. Similar to his own mind and emotions in their own discordant concert now. 

He asked low, “You assume I do not care what you desire?”

“No assumption needed, I know…” she paused as if she didn’t want to say the next word in her mind.

“You know me is what you wish to say.”

She glanced up from her hands and back down, testing the edge of her short nails. His thought was correct even if she didn’t confirm it verbally.

They paused, him staring, studying every tic and her avoiding looking at him. Precisely when he needed to learn every reaction to her own, she hid them.

“Words said change everything Sherlock,” She closed her eyes. “I hate it, its so much easier—”

“Now when have you ever liked easy?” The corner of his lips rose, and she glanced at him, but turned away to avoid his stare. 

“Shockingly enough, most people don’t look for challenges.”

A tiny smile slipped as he said. “We aren’t most people Molly… and I don’t think you want to be.”

“Again assuming what I want” she half laughed, cynical, and he wished to never hear this laugh directed at him. Impossible, though. 

“You stabbed his hand… with a fork.”

She frowned with squinted eyes. “What are you—”

He couldn’t recall the man’s name. “Terrr—”

“Tom.” She sighed. 

“Yes… you stabbed his hand with your fork.”

“Yes...” she met his stare with confusion. “What does that matter now? “

“You do what is needed. Always.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry but—”

“Read my mind, I only wished I could have done it myself.” He shrugged with a smirk.

She folded her arms as she leaned back. “So I’m a mind reader now… Great!”

His mouth dropped open and then shut. “Hmm, this isn’t what I was working toward—”

“Then spit it out and leave me be,” she gritted out. 

He leaned forward, seeking her eyes. “Why should I leave you be?”

She met his stare and put her hands up as her voice raised. “Oh, God… no NO… I’m not getting into that, not after…everything. You work it out.”

He flopped back against the sofa, looking up at the ceiling , “So you’re asking me to deduce you now? You used to censure such, but I can….” he dropped his chin, looking back at her. “Do we begin with the anger or the lingering ache which one wins—” 

She adjusted her seat and leaned forward, setting her elbows on her knees as she rubbed her face."I’m always at the disadvantage. You always have the upper hand."

The wetness at the edge of her eyes as she lifted her face struck him. He reacted in a soft voice. “Molly, it was unintended—”

“Do you deny it? You like it... you…” she put her hands up, shut her eyes tight, shaking her head before she lowered hands and folded her arms across her chest, allowing a stare to begin once again between them. “You keep everyone at a safe unemotional distance because… “

He blinked, and his mouth fell slack.

“Don’t blink at me like you’re resetting. You’ve blinked so many times before, as if I were speaking gibberish. Then you stare and I just pray you’ll blink again and I can look away. But then you tell me words… God they’re so simple, and they just work their way in and I… I can’t stop how they make me feel. And I hate it. I hate that I can’t not give a damn.”

A clue, but if he stared too long it lost its lines, features blurred and unremarkable. _Work quick or leave it be_ , he thought. _Look at it another day perhaps, but no,_ all focus sharpened like the turning of a lens. He’d seen her many times, but he couldn’t deny his eyes saw her fresh this time.

Every line of concern meant more now after those words. Every utterance said before, believed inconsequential, ran in his mind for scrutiny.

“It was a date” Sherlock said, seeking her eyes with his own. 

She shook her head. “No, it—”

“Molly… stop. It… was… a date. I do understand the meaning of the word.”

She looked away from his stare, rubbing at her clavicle absently as she stood to a pace. “Why did I ask you to dinner…. and...”

“And so did I… but it’d shifted and I knew that—”

“Of course you did…” she snickered as the anger released across her forehead. “You always—”

“I knew you’d say no… well, my odds were good.” He cocked his head as he stood, envying her pacing as he needed it as well, but his voice lowered as he glanced back at her, stepping round the table. “You said you thought you should act like John… to replace him.”

She swallowed visibly, glancing up, back down and to the side. “I know I couldn’t I’m not—”

“No… you aren’t and please never believe you are.” He only hoped the rising panic in his voice was readable to her as he stepped closer to her. 

She glared back at him. “God, we could have discussed this any time before now, but… fine. Then what am I then ? Hmm? Colleague? Confidant? Friend? You said friend so easily on the phone, but in person… I mattered most? You know how many nights I let those words haunt me? God, the sleep I’ve lost on you and nights and--“

“Too many.” Her dark eyes bore a hole in him as she mumbled, cutting her off. 

She breathed deeply. “And you said them, anyway. Are you really thick about this or are you playing a game? Do I even want to know? Why do I want to know? I don’t but I—”

He shook his head slow as he stepped closer to her. “I sense we are speaking the answers the other expects but… not the same conversation.”

She matched his step. Her chin jutted out as she looked up at him as he stared into her glittering eyes. “So… fucking… what. It’s not any different from—”

“Tell me what I’ve done to you. No please please don’t be angry it’s not…,” he paused and breathed, his lungs burning as his eyes searched for hers. “I only wish to know myself in this… to know my count of wrongs.”

His stare traced down to her lips for a moment, the slightest tremble as her chin fell to her chest.

“Why do I… why can’t I just...” she mumbled under her breath, teeth clenched. 

He spoke low. “Why do you want that? Do you think I do? I wish I knew what to do...I am still myself you’d think it was enough to have said—”

“Don’t… just God, be an arse or something because this Sherlock, this man who is…”

“Lost? At the disadvantage now?” He wanted to touch her face suddenly, but his hands remained at his side. He expected she’d slap away his hand, anyway. 

Her voice cracked, the disbelief clear in it. “No, this is worst this is… it’s fantastical its not real, it’s some words someone taught you it can’t be—”

“Can we go get chips?”

She squinted, whispering, “What?”

He shrugged. “Chips. Maybe a drink? Not sure what all goes for—”

“What the hell?”

“It’s just chips.”

She huffed a laugh. “Nothing is ever just anything with you.”

“It can be,” he sighed.

“Why?” Her arms crossed her chest now, chin jutted back up 

“Because we didn’t, haven’t before.”

“I should tell you to fuck off.”

He put his hands up, raising his voice. “Please don’t… I don’t want that.”

She shook her head. The conflict that he’d once again strung her along to hurt her evident in every muscle in her body. Taunt as her voice as she said. “I’ve cared too much about what you want like you didn’t—”

“Molly… please, just get chips.” He begged now. He needed this reset. Something to get them away from a place heavy with old and recent memories. A change of scene desired and assured the shift needed. Or at least, the knot his stomach from so little food would cease its gnawing.

“I’m—”

“Angry. Me too. And tired and sad and a fucking mess...and I’m sorry.”

“Yes...” she murmured out, glancing away and back at him. 

“Chips? Lets try it. Let’s try again. Trying anything is better than letting this just be.”

She moved first, headed to the door, and he followed, every step lighter than the previous. “You always get me to do the worst things,” she sighed as she took her coat off the hook.

He shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Don’t be dramatic, it’s not you. Chips are hardly the worst. Top ten at most?” He risked a smirk, and she offered a slight one back. 

“You know what I’m saying.”

“Do I?” he frowned as he opened the door, and he went to the street to hail a cab while she closed it and locked it with her key.

“You do. You’re just fantastic at ignoring it,” she said as she stepped beside him.

“Apparently it’s solid training… not all of my choice.”

  
He realised too late the crack in his voice.

“I'’m sorry.... I forgot I… dammit.” She threw her head back, closing her eyes. His eyes travelled down the line of her neck but he censured himself as a cab pulled near and he waved.

“When did you last eat?” he asked as he opened the door. She slid in and he followed, giving the driver quick instructions.

She shrugged as she looked out the window. “Bite of toast a few hours ago, I think...you?”

He only shook his head.

“Chips sound great to be honest,” she said with a faint smile.

He stared out the cab window to hide his own smile, his chest warming and aching at the sight of hers.

“Maybe… a worthy” he thought experiment, but somehow that word now bitter on his tongue and he swallowed it. 

The rest of the cab ride was silent and blessedly short.

He opened the door for her. The chip shop was notedly small and pale yellow, like the oil coating its walls. Sherlock grinned as the owner greeted him with a laugh, a smile and a wave which melted into a curious look when his eyes landed on Molly.

“One or two?” the owner asked, rubbing his hands on his apron as he motioned for the clerk.

Sherlock said, “Just a large… wait unless—”

“We can share,” she murmured when he glanced at her.

Sherlock followed her out of the corner of his eye as she wandered to the high counter with stools at the window while he chatted with the owner. Small talk is so typically exhausting, but oddly comforting tonight. His mind couldn’t settle, but the back and forth between acquaintances laid like a balm on the irritation. That perhaps the world continued on and would continue on, and all the edges of darkness would fade.

A young clerk handed him the chips with care. Sherlock walked to join her, setting the red and white striped paper tray in front of her with his left hand, and she reached in out of instinct with her right. His hand grabbed hers to stop her out of instinct.

“Too hot they’ll burn you,” he blurted, but realised too late what had happened. His own hand and hers went hot instead, irritation shooting an ache through his wounded knuckles.

He didn’t flip her hand from his as he pushed past the pain and fear. His thumb hid in her palm as he wrapped his fingers around hers, pressing them firm into his palm. They sat still until a tremble grew between them. Edges ragged gnawed, unable to hold either of them steady anymore as their eyes stared down. 

He needed her to talk. Just about anything would do, his fears sitting in his throat like sand. Something other than this silence, so unfamiliar and weighted.

Maybe it’d be like it was before, he hoped, recalling every word said before he could recollect. Flashing across his mind that he’d stored unknowingly.

She’d prattle on, and he’d cut her off.

Until he didn’t one time and she stopped herself.

He told her to continue and so their practice began.

Then she stopped, her words and thoughts too angry to be soothing. Tiny nips in their tone and he abandoned the practice as did she.

But it shifted back, as it always did with them. They never left it too long, using work as an excuse, until the jests returned. Delicate teasing games until comfort necessitated they strike a perfect balance between irritation and mirth. 

His knees insisted he sit or fall, and he obliged, gripping her hand tight for courage. 

One unclean night he’d demanded she speak about anything, he recalled. Her voice was unreasonably mild as it met his sting. A deeply kind distraction, and its own medicinal high, if he was honest. Not that he ever was. He fixated on every breath and tone escaping thin lips he studied too long; mapping her tongue as it struck her teeth. Without question she spoke until her words shifted to gentle breathing as she fell asleep and he watched her chest fall and rise to do the same.

How her hand laid near his near touching and yet he didn’t dare even then. He could hold the hand of a weeping client, but Molly’s hand was off limits. He should have recognised why that was so. 

Her presence perpetually wrapped in an odd perfume. Lab chemicals and sweet flowery scents she changed over time but her shampoo on that night, fresh from the shower fading from hair air dried, floated to him like her pillow times ten filling his nose. Beyond hinting, not like her side smile when he spoke in jest or insult, but the stinging ache across his raw cheekbone. Her words mingling in his mind, flying like feathers with every careless breath. 

No one witnessed their moments private and quiet, lost to memory now. How he wished she could yell at him, but he feared only silence after these confessions. He saw the merit. The logic of her abandoning the lot of them is the most solid in face of the evidence.

And he prayed as he sensed her pulse, she wouldn’t be logical for once in her life.

She loved him. Her hand unmoved spoke of it. Or… perhaps she didn’t any longer and this the phantom lingering link across the broken bond. Who knows if such affections shifted after words once uttered, he’s so unpracticed in any of these ruminations to assume. Whatever type of love she desired, he couldn’t promise it. He couldn’t comprehend it yet. But worst of all, he needed to walk blindly to truth for once defying all rationale. He loved her completely. But beyond the words he’d said, he remained rudderless. 

All these thoughts rolled across his mind, his hand grip solid but tender. Everything faded, the windows, the city to a mild yellow grey as the streetlights came on. All blurred except her skin on his.

“Sherlock…” she whispered his name, her voice cracking at the end.

He sucked in his breath hard, lifting his glance to meet hers deliberately, but not fully. Matched in the side look of uncertainty. 

She blinked, he knew to avoid his stare, but she pulled her hand down to her thigh near her knee and his hand with it as she shifted. Before he could offer a word, not that words matter now, her head fell onto his shoulder. 

Perhaps there is an infinite amount of pain the human heart can endure after all, he mused, slowing his breath to match hers as his heart eased in his chest in a quiet, unexpected way. Peace is what John said he needed. A sensation he’d recreated with a needle, a chemical version of something natural but foreign to him. False as the lies that swirled in his mind his entire life. They fought him now, and he manipulated it to something… _oh what did it matter anymore_ ; he reminded himself as she sighed through her nose. Despite all logic and circumstance, he comprehended the sentiment now with unaccustomed eyes. Peace was her hand in his unhurried. An abstract of a growing deduction. Perhaps he’d skewed the data all along, forcing it all to match his hypothesis rather than letting it run its course to its natural conclusion. 

But it had a cost, he thought. Lost time and effort and anguish. His debt bloated with interest he’d never fulfil. The urge to let go of her hand surged through him suddenly but he let it pass through him like a cheap high and it faded as he focused on her nearness, desiring nothing else now and it surprised him. He didn’t need to run after all.

She grabbed his right hand with her left and shifted the other out with ease to make the hand holding more natural; he hardly noticed the change. She tested the chips with her right hand, breaking one in half with her nail, steam rising. She picked up one half and tested it against her mouth, blowing on it. He stared too long at her lips again, soaking in additional details, now sharp as if magnified. She nibbled a tiny bite and after another violent blow she placed the rest in her mouth. He noted her chewing rolling against his arm. She reached for the other half and lifted it up to his mouth. He leaned down obliging, taking it as his lips feathered across her finger. 

And they sat looking out into the streetlight lit drizzle, millions of stories and cases walking right by that window. Murders of passion, crimes of need and wanting waiting to happen and people needing answers. And not a single one interested him. Nothing worth interrupting this moment of inertia discovered in holding her hand and her head heavy against his arm. A calculation floating before his eyes counting the forces setting them both to a halt , unbalanced as Newton ascribed but gloriously so. He cannot thank his sister for her method, but nonetheless the force applied did its work. 

No longer in perpetual motion in one direction, but Sherlock remained still for once. As he pondered the sensation, he felt her smile as her jaw rose against him. He glanced to see it reflected in the window. But more so, he saw his own matched. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its done!
> 
> excuse errors and it not being quite what I wanted. Its a lot of words. It needed more edits but I needed to be done.
> 
> early beta'ed by mouse 9
> 
> See? It went S O F T.
> 
> Thank you all for coming on this bumpy ride.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Mouse9 for the endurance 
> 
> Helluva way to celebrate 3 years since that scene eh? I ended it a day after the 4th anniversary. 
> 
> POVs all start at the same point in time but each chapter advances the story forward time wise. It will go to about 24 hours after the events in the last episode. 
> 
> This was cathartic and a great mind exercise. No sure i'll ever repeat the process though.


End file.
